Titanium Soul
by PixelKind413
Summary: All men are not created equal, this Izuku knew - had known, from the tender age of 4. His childhood friend Mei taught him there were ways to make up for that. When she finds him on Death's door, she spits in its face and drags him back, rebuilding him stronger and more powerful than ever before.
1. Transcendence

**DISCLAIMER: Yeah, I don't own My Hero Academia, that stuff is baller tho. Please, support the official release.**

**Titanium Soul**

**[PROLOGUE]: Transcendence**

_Transcendence (n): existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level_

* * *

Izuku Midoriya slowly woke to pain, muffled shouting, and the familiar feeling of a hand running through his hair. What was going on? He opened his eyes but his vision was blurred, only showing him a pink blob against white walls. It was Mei, then.

He opened his mouth, but she pressed her finger against his lips.

"I… I'm going to do something, Zuzu, but first I need you to tell me: do you trust me with your life?"

He blinked. That was kind of a dumb question. "Of course." It came out weak and raspy, as if he hadn't spoken for a week. For all he knew, that was true.

She lifted his head and slipped something over it. Some sort of helmet? It wasn't very comfortable. Her hand rested on his cheek for a moment.

"Be strong."

And then his mind was torn apart.

* * *

**[INITIALIZING...]**

**FULL SYSTEMS CHECK . . . . . . . . . . ALL SYSTEMS NOMINAL**

**ESTABLISHING CONNECTION . . . . . . . . . . CONNECTION SECURED**

**[BRAIN SCAN: COMPLETE]  
[-|-|-|-|-|-|-]**

**[INITIALIZING DOWNLOAD]  
[ | | | | | | ]**

* * *

"_Give it up, Deku."_

_Izuku blinked confusedly. "Give what up, Kacchan?"_

_Kacchan rolled his eyes. "Your whole hero fantasy. You're Quirkless. It's not happening."_

"_But… we're gonna be heroes together-"_

"_As if! You're just a shitty, useless Deku who'd probably get himself killed by the first villain you fight. Give it up."_

* * *

**[DOWNLOAD IN PROGRESS]  
[-| | | | | | ]**

* * *

_He stared at the small, pink-haired girl who just moved in next door._

"_Hi! I'm Mei! You wanna be friends?"_

_He started to smile, but stopped. He couldn't lie to her. "I, uh… I'm Quirkless."_

_She blinked. "Oh. That's okay. Tell you what, I'll build you a Quirk!"_

_His head tilted curiously. "You can do that?"_

_She smiled. "Yeah! Come on, I'll show you!"_

* * *

**[DOWNLOAD IN PROGRESS]  
[-|-| | | | | ]**

* * *

_Mei stared at the contraptions strapped to her legs in betrayal. "My babies, how could you do this to me?"_

_He looked up from Hero Analysis Notebook #4. "Hmmm. You're probably missing some sort of stabilizer - kind of like the hero Wake. His Quirk is shooting highly pressurized streams of water from his body, and in his earlier days he had to shoot from both his hands and feet to stay in the air."_

_The pink-haired girl considered this. "So I just need to add rockets to my arms?"_

"_Probably, yeah."_

* * *

**[DOWNLOAD IN PROGRESS]  
[-|-|-| | | | ]**

* * *

_He sat cross-legged in a by-then familiar room, surrounded by half-built devices and blueprints._

"_Ugh! I can't believe they disqualified me just because my Zero-Point Energy Generator exploded! It only injured a third of the judges, and this is revolutionary technology we're talking about!"_

_He shrugged. "I mean, their safety concerns were valid. They were standing eight yards away when it blew."_

_She harrumphed. "Safety schmafety - they're just wusses."_

* * *

**[DOWNLOAD IN PROGRESS]  
[-|-|-|-| | | ]**

* * *

_He stared as the charred remains of Hero Analysis Notebook #11 soared out the window._

_The sugary scent of nitroglycerin filled his nostrils, bringing his attention back to Kacchan. The angry red eyes stared into his own._

"_That wasn't very nice, Kacchan."_

"_Don't call me that, you shitty Deku! When will you understand? You're just a useless, Quirkless loser who'll never amount to anything! Why do you even bother to keep trying?"_

* * *

**[DOWNLOAD IN PROGRESS]  
[-|-|-|-|-| | ]**

_Mei's head swung down from the top bunk, bronze eyes sparkling with mischief. "Whatcha thinkin' 'bout, Zuzu?"_

_He smiled wistfully. "How when we grow up, we're gonna make the best hero agency ever."_

_She rolled her eyes. "Well, duh! With your brains and my babies, we'll be unstoppable!"_

_He eyed her carefully. "You promise?"_

_She grinned. "Hatsume guarantee!"_

* * *

**[DOWNLOAD IN PROGRESS]  
[-|-|-|-|-|-| ]**

* * *

_His hand speared through the sludge, grabbing his once-friend's arm and pulling with all his strength. The villain retaliated, striking him hard enough to launch him across the street - but his grip never broke._

_With Kacchan out of the way, the heroes were free to converge on the villain - but the red eyed boy turned angrily towards him. "I DIDN'T NEED YOUR HELP, YOU SHITTY DEKU!"_

"_Well, that's a shame," he muttered weakly. "Guess I'll die for nothing."_

_The red eyes freeze and flick down at him, at the piece of rebar sticking through Izuku's chest. The rebar that would have pierced Kacchan himself, had he taken the brunt of the impact._

_The red puddle that was rapidly growing under them._

"_SON OF A BITCH, DEKU! SOMEONE CALL A FUCKING AMBULANCE!"_

* * *

**[DOWNLOAD: COMPLETE]  
[-|-|-|-|-|-|-]**

**INITIALIZING NEURAL EMULATOR . . . . . . . . . . . EMULATOR RUNNING**

* * *

Izuku Midoriya was very suddenly… aware.

That was all he could really say, since there wasn't much to actually be aware _of_. He didn't hear anything, nor did he feel anything. He went to open his eyes, before suddenly noticing that he didn't actually have any anymore.

How peculiar.

He was actually rather sure that he should be panicking right then. If he were to be entirely honest with himself, he'd have to admit he was rather prone to panic in general.

**[NEW DEVICE DETECTED]**

Suddenly, he had sight. It was terribly low resolution, but it _was_. The vast majority of his field of view was taken up by the distressed face of his childhood friend Mei Hatsume.

"C'mon baby, _please_ work! Zuzu, you in there?"

He would have blinked, had he had eyes. _"Uh… yeah?"_

His voice sounded synthetic and awful, but at least he still had it.

A massive grin split Mei's face. "YES! They called me crazy, but who's laughing now!"

"_Mei, what did you do this time?"_

"Zuzu, I saved you."

"_Uuuuuh, thanks?"_

"No, I _saved_ you. Your mind is currently running on my computer"

"_Well, that would do it, yeah."_

* * *

**A/N: See, I'm not dead yet. I have, however, kept up my streak of murdering the protagonist in the first chapter of my fics!**


	2. Provenance

**A/N [PixelKind]: Crossposting this bad boy from my AO3 account, you can check on over there for chapter 3 (if I haven't posted it here already) along with some drawings my megabeta Doobly Baggo made! Without further ado...**

**Titanium Soul**

**[CHAPTER 2]: Provenance**

_Provenance (n): place or source of origin_

* * *

Izuku Midoriya could safely say that he had not started his day expecting to become a computer program.

Now, certain arguments could be made - namely that it hadn't been a day, but actually two weeks, since he'd last had a steady stream of consciousness - Or that he wasn't actually a computer program, but rather his brain was being simulated _by_ a computer program. Regardless, his current situation had been completely unexpected-

_**Crunch**_.

His attention was brought back to the single, low-quality webcam that was his only link to the world. Mei had her feet up on the desk in front of her, and was slowly munching her way through a bag of Cheez-o's.

"Wow, you still do the whole mumbling thing even though you're a robot now. That's actually kind of impressive."

"_Well, I mean, I'm still me? To a certain degree I suppose, but I don't think you actually changed anything when you downloaded me - god that feels weird to say. Brains are _complicated _so it'd be pretty hard to deliberately change anything without completely messing up the rest of me-_"

_**Crunch**_.

Was… was eating loudly Mei's second Quirk?

"Zuzu. As your friend, I'm obligated to let you know when you're overthinking stuff. You're overthinking stuff."

"_That's… fair, I guess._"

"In other news… guess what I got you!"

He thought for a moment. "_The gift of life?_"

She tilted her head. "Well, technically yes but that's not what I was talking about. Here, gimme a second… no, that's not it… AHA!"

She victoriously pulled a white rectangle out from her bag and held it up towards the camera.

"_Mei, I hope you realize that due to the constraints of your webcam I am literally incapable of reading what's on that piece of paper._"

Her face fell. "Oh. Well, it's a UA Application…" her face split into a grin. "...to the Hero Course!"

Oh?

"_That's, uh, thoughtful of you but… how do you expect me to become a hero, now that I'm, you know… well, if I had arms I'd be waving towards my general lack of arms._"

"Zuzu, you forget who you're talking to. We're gonna make the cutest baby the world will ever know! A true test of my innate inventing genius! Your hero career shall be a monument to the power of Hatsume Industries!"

"_I don't follow._"

The edges of her grin turned vicious. "Do I really need to spell this out for you? We're gonna build you a robot body and you're gonna punch some villains in the _face_."

He took a moment to consider this.

"_Okay, but did you actually print out an online form for the guy who's literally a computer?_"

_**Crunch**_.

* * *

"_Okay, so I'm thinking some sort of modular body system? So I could change setups based off what I'm gonna be doing?"_

"Eeeeh, modular systems are more trouble than they're worth - maybe just build multiple bodies and switch out between them if needed?"

"_Yeah that'd make sense - oh wow I can control the screen too? - The head is gonna be a pain to build though, so maybe just that detaches?"_

"That would do it, yeah. I'm guessing you want full facial articulation?"

"_Having a proper face is a must, I don't want to traumatize anyone when I'm supposed to be saving them."_

"Eeeh, look up how other people have done it and work off that I guess."

"_What, you're not going to come up with it yourself? For shame, Mei."_

"Pffft. What do I look like, an art student? I'm more worried about building your _hands_ \- you know how _precise_ those things have to be? And all the sensors I'll have to work in! This is going to be a _delightfully_ complex baby, Zuzu!"

"_So I guess I get to design the head then?"_

"Awww, you know me so well! On a related note, what are your thoughts on the aesthetic appeal of really big shoulder plates?"

"_Mei no."_

"Mei _yes._"

* * *

"_So, uh, I ran a few numbers and we may have a pair of teensy, tiny problems._"

Mei looked up from the half-drawn blueprints spread across the table. "Hit me."

"_First off: Brainpower. Here's the specs of the computer I'd need to run myself at optimal capacity - and I'd prefer to go at least 18% over that, so I can actually run other stuff as well…_"

A series of numbers lit up the screen.

"_... and here's the specs of the best computer the human race has designed that could fit within the space our design gives us._"

Another set of significantly lower numbers appeared on the next line.

"_Do you see the issue?_"

Mei nodded, chewing on the end of her pencil. "Yeah, I can see it. What's the other one?"

"_Energy output. With the best battery tech we have, I could run at normal human strength for maybe an hour. For hero work, I'd probably hit the wall at around 15 minutes._"

She hummed throughtfully. "I just might have something to fix that problem. I'll get that, you try and tackle the brain problem?"

"_Sure, I guess. I make no promises, though._"

"Zuzu, you mispronounced 'Plus Ultra' again."

* * *

When Izuku Midoriya had a problem he couldn't solve, he usually just let it sit in the back of his mind while he browsed hero forums. So that is what he did.

After all, he had two weeks worth of backlogged hero news to take notes on since his, ah, digitalization.

_VIDEO: Mt. Lady Fight Compilation 1_

Hmmmm. Clearly, this new heroine cared very little about property damage from the way she kept literally jumping into fights at full-size. Hero suit could use a little work, possibly some sort of expanding soles since the material was tight enough for her to be functionally barefoot.

Main strengths? Intimidation, relative strength of her big form, sex appeal.

_NEWS ARTICLE: Quirk-Enhancing Drugs Discovered, Outlawed_

Now that's not good. Not that they were banned, who _knows_ how those kinds of drugs could affect the development of someone's quirk - but that they were actually starting to spread. That pretty much meant even more powerful villains for heroes to deal with.

_MAGAZINE ARTICLE: Daughter of Pro Hero family Yaoyorozu applying to UA on recommendation_

It was always good to hear about the next generation of heroes, especially one with such a versatile Quirk: Creation, the ability to create objects out of her own lipids. Izuku couldn't wait to see her in action in a few years.

Wait a second. She'd be his classmate if he got in. Cool.

_Wait a second - Creation?_

The cooling fans on Mei's hastily upgraded computer whirred to life as Izuku's mind ran a mile a minute.

If her Quirk worked how he thought it would work - how he _hoped_ it worked - she just might be the key to solving this whole brain power problem.

He was fairly certain that he and Mei would be able to come up with a design for a sufficient computer no problem, the issue was whether or not it was actually possible to make. To even come close to the sheer processing power of a normal human brain, they'd need logic gates the same size or smaller than a single neuron. They didn't have tools precise enough to make those - _nobody_ did.

But with a Quirk like Yaoyorozu's, they would be able to bypass the actual manufacturing process and just Create the damn thing.

"_Mei?_"

"One minute-" a small explosion rang out from the next room over. "Okay never mind, what's up?"

"_I might have a solution for the brain problem, just let me know if this sounds too stalker-ey._"

She grinned and threw herself into the chair. "I'm listening."

* * *

Momo Yaoyorozu was having a positively grand time, flipping through her favorite encyclopedia while sitting curled up in a window seat, when her phone let out a cheerful little ding.

This was an unusual occurrence, seeing as very few people actually had her number. Still, she hummed curiously as she opened the message.

**[Unknown Number]: **_Hello! Is this Momo Yaoyorozu?_

She blinked. Her phone dinged again.

**[Unknown Number]: **_My name is Izuku Midoriya, and I need your help_

How strange.

**Momo: **_This is she. How did you get this number?_

**[Unknown Number]: **_Um_

**[Unknown Number]: **_That would be a very long story_

**[Unknown Number]: **_If it helps, I will hopefully be classmates with you at UA?_

Her head tilted. She backed out of the conversation and instead pulled up her messages with her father.

**Momo: **_Hey Dad, can I get a background check on an 'Izuku Midoriya'?_

**Dad: **_Sure, give me a few mintues_

**Dad: **_*minutes_

She put down her phone and flipped a page in her book.

Her phone dinged again.

**Dad: **_Izuku Midoriya, born 2310, lived in Mustafu. Quirkless. Ran a minor hero blog, did Quirk Analysis on the side - top notch stuff, by the way._

**Dad: **_He seems perfectly clean, besides having died fifteen days ago._

He died fifteen days ago? He was _her_ age.

But hey, clean was clean. She brought back up the messages from whoever claimed to be him.

**Momo: **_You're dead._

A short pause.

**[Unknown Number]:**_ Well, technically, yeah_

**[Unknown Number]:**_ It's kind of related to what I need your help with_

She swore, if this was some kind of ghost hoax…

**Momo:**_ And what, exactly, did you need me to do?_

**[Unknown Number]: **_I need you to use your Quirk to make a computer_

What? Why would a dead person need a computer?

**Momo: **_Couldn't you just… buy a computer?_

**[Unknown Number]: **_The kind of computer we need kind of can't be made with modern technology, and even if it could we'd end up on some sort of watch list_

She pondered this for a moment.

**Momo: **_Neat. What's it for?_

**[Unknown Number]: **_Well, uh, you know how I'm dead?_

**[Unknown Number]:**_ We're building a robot body and we need a brain for it_

She tilted her head thoughtfully. That made… an amount of sense, she supposed.

**Momo: **_Who is "we"?_

**[Unknown Number]: **_It's just me and my friend Mei Hatsume_

She went back to her messages with her dad.

**Momo: **_How about Mei Hatsume?_

The response was immediate

**Dad: **_Oh Lord, not her._

**Dad: **_She is a menace to society and managed to put herself on half the government watch lists by the age of twelve. Worryingly intelligent and capable of designing gadgets beyond the abilities of your average Support company. Has expressed interest in working in the industry herself, so despite everything she'll probably be a valuable contact later on._

**Dad: **_She's also in Mustafu, same age as Midoriya._

**Momo: **_Thanks!_

She went back to her conversation with Midoriya, saving his contact info into her phone while she was at it.

**Momo:**_ I would prefer to meet in person before making a decision._

**Midoriya: **_That's… better than I expected and perfectly reasonable. Where do you want to meet? _

**Momo** sent a map location

**Momo:**_ I will be having lunch here at 12:30 tomorrow. Will you require transportation?_

**Midoriya: **_If it's not too much trouble, that would be great_

**Momo:**_ Very well. I shall arrange it._

**Midoriya:**_Right, do you need our address?_

**Momo:**_ No, we know where you live._

**Midoriya: **_Oh_

**Midoriya:**_ Okay_

Momo nodded to herself and set her phone down. She eyed the encyclopedia on her lap for a moment, before heading back to her family library for a different one.

She _had_ been meaning to reread '_Fundamentals of Computer Engineering_' for a while, now.

* * *

Momo Yaoyorozu could safely say that she had not started her day expecting to be performing brain surgery on a robot.

Now certain arguments could be made - namely that it wasn't _technically_ surgery if you were building the thing from scratch, or that the "robot" was actually an android if you were to be technical. Regardless, her current situation had been completely unexpected.

It all began, as many things do, with an explosion.

"Um… are you sure this is the right house?"

Smoke rolled over the windows of the limousine as the driver nodded. A single screw bounced across the hood.

"Sorry about that, just revolutionizing the entire energy production industry. Gimme a minute and I'll be right out."

Momo nodded and pulled the dossier on Hatsume on her phone. Yes, definitely the right house.

The door swung open to reveal the absolute image of chaos. A borderline maniacal grin on her face, crosshair eyes dilated, probably pink dreads askew (the color was kind of hard to make out from all the soot). This unexploded bomb of a human being confidently strode up to the window of the limo and knocked.

"Open the window, miracle girl!"

Momo blinked. "Is… are you talking to me?"

Hatsume nodded several times more than was necessary.

The window rolled down. "Mei Hatsume, I assume?"

"The one and only! And you're, uh… what's her name again?"

A muffled, robotic tone replied from the girl's pocket. "_Yaoyorozu._"

Momo tilted her head. "Is that Midoriya?"

She nodded and pulled a phone from her pocket. "Depends on your definitions of a few things, but basically yes."

The door to the limo swung open. Hatsume jumped in, somehow managing to not hit her head on the roof of the car.

"Oooh, comfy."

Momo sighed internally. "Do you want anything to drink?"

Hatsume's head tilted. "You have a mini fridge in here?"

Momo nodded.

Hatsume turned to her phone. "Zuzu we need to get one of those in the lab."

An obviously synthesized sigh. "_I'll add it to the list. Let's get serious though._"

Momo straightened up. It was business time. "Right, you said you needed me to make some kind of computer?"

Hatsume reached into her backpack and pulled out a rolled up blueprint. She handed it over to Momo, who spread it out across her lap.

"_That's gonna be my brain._"

"...Neat. Can I look at the rest of the blueprints?"

Mei just shrugged off her backpack and tossed it to her. "They're somewhere in there. Most of those are for the project, but a couple of them are just gadgets and superweapons and doodads."

"_Wow, Mei, you're actually being normal about your designs-_"

"BOW BEFORE THE INTELLECTUAL MIGHT OF HATSUME INDUSTRIES! Not to be confused with Hatsume Incorporated, which was owned by my uncle, God rest his soul."

"_Ah. There it is._"

Momo flipped through the blueprints. There were designs for the actual robot body, hoverboots, eight types of grappling hooks, a railgun for some reason, and an entire page labelled 'Z-PEG' that was completely whited out.

Hatsume grinned. "Yeah, that one's confidential. Mostly because it keeps exploding and I don't want anyone else to figure it out before me."

Momo nodded thoughtfully. "Well, the designs certainly check out. I suppose I'll consider it. We can discuss payment over lunch."

Hatsume's face took a peculiar, fixed expression. As if she suddenly remembered she was dead inside.

"You… you didn't think I'd just hand you a supercomputer without payment, did you?"

Hatsume shrugged. "You know... I didn't really think about it."

The robotic voice piped up. "_I did! I've done some looking into you, hope you don't mind, and it doesn't really seem like money is a thing you need - which is good because we're kind of broke ourselves, we build our stuff using scrap metal from the trash beach over at Dagobah - but with your Quirk, what would probably provide the most value for you is designs for gadgets which, trust me, we have plenty of._"

Momo clapped her hands decisively. "Well, from what I've seen that will definitely be an acceptable form of payment, given that all your designs are of a similar quality. We can discuss the details _after_ lunch."

* * *

**A/N: **

**(PIXELKIND): And here we have chapter 2! Introductions have been made, there is lunch still to be had, and we have another member of Hatsume Industries (not to be confused with Hatsume Industrial, owned by Mei's great-grand-aunt, may she rest in peace). I'm crossposting this from Ao3 which you can head on over to if you wanna see some drawings my beta Doobly Baggo made! And, you know, the rest of the fic since CH3 is up on that site. The text conversation didn't really work out properly here since theres no option to align text to the right on ffnet.**


	3. Organon

**Titanium Soul**

**[CHAPTER 3]: Organon**

_Organon (n): an instrument of thought or knowledge_

* * *

Mei Hatsume could safely say she hadn't started her day expecting to add Miracle Girl to the ranks of Hatsume Industries (now numbering three, including herself).

Now, certain arguments could be made - namely that to refer to her gang of madmen as an actual company was demeaning to the Support Item Industry as a whole - or that moniker of "Miracle Girl" was, while accurate, not the appropriate way to refer to one's newest business partner. Regardless, her current situation was a very welcome surprise.

It began (as many things did) in a fancy restaurant, empty plates pushed aside in favor of blueprints spread across the table. Yaoyorozu's eyes scanned one particular blueprint, committing it to memory even as she verbally duelled with Mei.

"Eighteen blueprints and 15% of Hatsume Industries"

"Hatsume Industries isn't even real. Thirty blueprints spread out across three weeks."

"I'm in the process of filling out the paperwork-"

"_You mean, getting me to fill out the paperwork._"

"Yeah, same thing. Give it like a month and we're golden. Anyways, twenty percent of the company and forty designs over three weeks, given that when used in public they bear our logo."

"_Mei, when did we get a logo?_"

She blinked. "What are you talking about? We've _always_ had a logo."

"_Mei, we're not using that drawing I made when I was six._"

"Well if you didn't want to use it you could have just changed it."

"_WAIT, THAT'S WHAT I FILED AS OUR LOGO?_"

"Yep."

"_MEI, WHAT HAVE YOU-_"

Yaoyorozu cleared her throat. "Thirty percent of the company as soon as its official, and eight designs a week for six weeks, with the appropriate logos when possible."

Mei quickly counted on her fingers. "So 48 designs total… we can do that." She stuck out her hand. "Deal."

Yaoyorozu grinned and shook it. "I'll have my legal team send you a paper contract with the terms later this week."

She lifted her hand and, with a flare of Creation, a brain-sized lump of graphene and silicon appeared in it. She set it down on the table with a thump.

Mei drooled.

"_Oh my god you actually made it - OH JESUS YAOYOROZU NOT IN PUBLIC!_"

Yaoyorozu blinked. "Well, you said you wanted it as soon as possible."

"_I mean yeah, but there are people who would massacre small nations for that kind of technology; you can't just plop it down on the table like that_."

She shrugged. "My bodyguards are the best in the country."

"_Well I'm glad I no longer have a body because I would have definitely had a heart attack just then. Let's just… go back to the garage before we're all murdered, please?_"

* * *

Yaoyorozu stepped into the Hatsume Workshop and simply stared. It was a room that had at one point been a garage, but was now home to a highly advanced laboratory/workshop that violated at least eighteen OSHA regulations she could name off the top of her head - and she'd barely even skimmed that rulebook.

"So… this is where we're working?"

Mei nodded. Yaoyorozu rolled up her sleeves and Created mechanic's gloves directly onto her hands. "Alright, what's first?"

Mei blinked. "Wait, you're still here?"

Yaoyorozu nodded slowly. "I'm not just going to let you run off with a supercomputer to do god knows what."

Mei nodded. "Alright then, Miracle Girl, since Zuzu doesn't have arms, you get to play lab assistant. Bring me the box labelled 'scrap' and a set of wrenches."

Yaoyorozu's eyes swept the workshop. "Which one?"

Mei shrugged. "Ask Zuzu, he's the one who cleaned up last."

"He's been dead for over two weeks, Hatsume."

"Well, you can still ask him."

"_I think the one you're looking for is between the nuclear flytrap and the self-stirring crucible._"

* * *

Mei cracked her fingers and plugged a cable into the back of her hastily upgraded desktop computer.

* * *

**[NEW DEVICE DETECTED]**

**Are you sure you want to move "justwakeupalreadyizuku(43).exe" to the new device?**

**Y / N **

**[TRANSFERRING FILES: COMPLETE]  
[-|-|-|-|-|-|-]**

* * *

She bit her lip and slid her chair across the room, to another monitor. This one was plugged into a terrifying metal approximation of a human skull, complete with silicon brain and glowing green eyes.

* * *

**INITIALIZING "justwakeupalreadyizuku(43).exe"**

**Would you like to import user preferences?**

**Y / N**

* * *

"Whoops."

* * *

**[PROGRAM FILES: RETRIEVED]  
[-|-|-|-|-|-|-]**

**INITIALIZING NEURAL EMULATOR . . . . . . . . . . . EMULATOR RUNNING**

* * *

Izuku awoke to the peculiar feeling that his brain was working faster than it had any right to. It was not something he'd ever felt before, but he found he rather enjoyed it. He grinned - and felt something like muscles moving.

Yaoyorozu spoke first. "Alright can you just… never do that again until we actually give you a face please?"

He blinked. "Well _excuse me_\- WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY VOICE!? WHY DO I HAVE A BRITISH ACCENT!?"

Mei shrugged flippantly. "Probably just the default of the text to speech program I pirated."

"Oh my god this is the program they use for the voiceovers for those awful MLG videos isn't it."

"Maaaaaaaaaaybe."

"And- oh god you set the user preferences to default didn't you? That's why I feel so weird."

Mei glared at him. "Well maybe you're just a heathen who likes inverted mouse controls."

"Look, they just make more sense to me, okay?"

Yaoyorozu nodded. "Not gonna lie, that's pretty weird."

"Well, personal preferences aside let's see if the mobility protocols work on this thing."

At the base of his neck, a set of vaguely spider-like legs unfolded and lifted him off the table.

Yaoyorozu shuddered. "I'm really starting to regret wanting to be here right now."

Mei waved her off. "What are you talking about? This is the cutest baby I've ever made!"

He very carefully didn't grin as he removed the plug from the base of his neck and hopped off the table. "Alright, judging by how much power that just used I should have anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes of battery power, depending on how active I am… how's your solution to the power issue looking?"

She smirked. "It's nothing before the full might of Hatsume Industries!"

"So a few more weeks. That's fine, we're not on a super tight schedule." He turned to Yaoyorozu. "Give me a few minutes to get used to being able to move again before we start working on giving me a face?"

* * *

"_Hey Mei, why do you have an entire crate of audio cassettes up here?"_

"_Because you have good ideas when you mutter and I can't write fast enough to keep up."_

"_You've been recording me for… how long exactly?"_

"_The past eight years, give or take six months."_

"_Well… I guess I can run these through a natural learning program and get my own voice back."_

"_I dunno, the current voice is kinda endearing."_

"_Mei I am not using the lowest budget text-to-speech software ever conceived by man- which you still felt the need to pirate, might I add- for actual Hero work. It's not happening."_

"_Well, I guess you can go ahead and do that if you want."_

"_I will, as a matter of fact."_

* * *

As the deft and nimble fingers of Mei and Yaoyorozu assembled his face, Izuku took the time to browse the internet and catch up with his hero forum accounts.

**MESSAGE: My name is Rei, and I died thirty years ago. Forward this message to eight other people, or my Quirk, "Cursed Legacy", will kill you…**

_Joke's on you,_ replied Izuku. _I'm already dead. Us ghosts really must stick together, though. Are you up for tea sometime?_

**MESSAGE: Hey man, I saw this article and I know you have some strong opinions on the subject… (1 attachment: )**

Oh, a local Quirkless Rights Activist group? A little late for him, but progress nonetheless. He was glad the issue was finally getting the attention it deserved.

**MESSAGE: Request for Hero Analysis on Pro Hero Snipe**

He hummed thoughtfully. Normally these kinds of requests were from fans of the hero or students assigned projects, but you couldn't be too careful these days. After carefully checking the rest of the account, he figured it was the latter. He directed the kid to some of the more reputable hero sources with a gentle reminder that plagiarism is illegal.

* * *

"Hey, Mei." It had taken the better part of two months for the program to process all the audio files, and Izuku was relishing in actually having his own voice again. "Remember what today is?"

Mei blinked and turned to her calendar. "...July 4? Oh, right."

Yaoyorozu tilted her head. "Midoriya, do you celebrate American Independence Day?"

He shook his head, which was the entirety of his body at that point anyways. "My face is attached, I actually have my voice, and I have enough battery life to make the trip. Looks like we're finally doing this."

Mei nodded sadly. Yaoyorozu looked confused. "What… what is today?"

"It's my mom's birthday. We need to tell her."

Mei pouted. "We could always wait until we have your full body-"

"No. We're doing this, Mei."

Yaoyorozu blinked. "You mean you still haven't told your mother about this? Doesn't she think you're dead?"

"Yeah, which is why we need to do this as soon as possible. We wait any longer and we'll have to waterproof me before heading out."

She looked mystified. "Waterproofing?"

Mei shrugged and slid a large metal case down from a high shelf. "Mrs. Midoriya is one hell of a crier." She flipped it open and patted the inside. "C'mon Zuzu, get in so the police don't try to arrest me again."

* * *

Katsuki Bakugo could safely say he hadn't started his day expecting to come face-to-face with the disembodied head of his three-months-dead friend.

Now, certain arguments could be made - namely that, rather than simply being a disembodied head, it was technically just a head-shaped block of metal that was _absolutely_ _convinced _it was Izuku Midoriya.

It began, as many things did, with a collision. He was carrying three boxes of papers, stacked on top of eachother and blocking his view. He wasn't some kind of _weakling_, though, so he didn't stop or put one down. He cursed as the tower toppled forwards, half-burying the unfortunate soul who was in front of him.

He cursed louder upon seeing _who_, exactly, he had run into. The pink dreads, soot-stained face, ridiculous goggles on her forehead - and _oh_ did he have words for her.

"Three months," he seethed. "Your so-called best friend has been dead for _three months_ and just now you're coming to visit Auntie?"

Hatsume blinked questioningly. "Well, I've been kind of busy-"

Small sparks crackled dangerously in the palms of his hands. "Busy doing _what_, gearfucker?"

A cruel smirk spread across her face as she rose back to her feet. "That's none of your business, asshole."

"None of my business?" he laughed derisively. "_None of my business?_ I spent _years_ bullying my _friend_ trying to get him to save him-_fucking_-self, and then you waltzed in, filled his head with your _stupid bullshit_ and now he's _fucking_ dead because of you- so yeah, I think it is my _fucking_ business; knowing what you thought was so important you couldn't spare _ten minutes_ when Auntie Inko was crying her _fucking_ heart out!"

Her eyes narrowed. "Oh, _I_ killed him? If my memory serves me correctly, _you_ were the one he was trying to-"

"Hatsume. That's _enough_." He just then noticed the tall, dark-haired girl that stood behind Gearfucker. Oh, that _bitch_.

Bakugo's eyes narrowed even further. "Oh, I see now. You've already gone and replaced him, haven't you? I bet you were _glad_ for an excuse to swap him out for a newer model - maybe even one with a _Quirk _this time-"

He was interrupted by a hauntingly familiar voice, coming from the box in the hands of Gearfucker 2. "Mei… I think we're going to have to tell him too."

Gearfucker's eyes burned into his own. "You're sure about that, Zuzu? This guy's a jackass."

"Eh, we won't be able to keep it a secret forever and we may as well break it to him while we have Yaoyorozu on hand."

She sighed and lifted the case from Gearfucker 2's hands. "Well, if you insist." She grabbed Katsuki's arm and dragged him down the path to the Midoriya residence. "I _really_ don't like you, Bakugo, but this isn't my choice."

She turned and knocked on the door. It swung open almost immediately. "Back again already, Katsuki?"

Then Auntie noticed Gearfucker.

* * *

Mrs. Midoriya had changed since Deku had died. She'd thinned out a little, grown harder. Her eyes, although still easily filled with tears, had a determined tilt to them.

"_Mei_? How have you been? Who's your friend there? Come in, please! Let me put some tea on."

"Thanks! This is Yaoyorozu, she's been helping me with some stuff. I've been... keeping busy."

She laughed as she walked to the kitchen. "Oh, I bet. What kind of projects have you been working on lately?"

Mei grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of her head. "Oh, there's only one project for me these days Mrs. Midoriya."

She paused. "Oh? It really must be something, to keep _you_ occupied for more than a week." Her face fell. "I do hope you're still getting out sometimes, it's not healthy being cooped up in that garage for so long."

Mei waved her off. "Yeah, yeah, I'm making sure to get fresh air."

Bakugo scowled impatiently. "Get on with it."

She rolled her eyes and turned back to Mrs. Midoriya. "It's probably going to be easier to show you, so just… try not to freak out please?"

Mrs. Midoriya tilted her head curiously. "I'll do my best, dear."

Mei nodded and, with a flourish, flipped open the case.

Izuku grinned sheepishly. "Hey mom."

Mrs. Midoriya froze, before she sighed and put down the teapot, ignoring Bakugo violently detonating himself in the corner. "I suppose I should have expected this."

Mei blinked. "You should have expected that I saved his life and put him in a machine?"

She shook her head. "Mei, this isn't healthy. You can't just… run his life through a computer program, stick it in a metal head with his face, and call it Izuku."

Mei waved her hands frantically. "No no no, I _know_ that, that's not what we did! I took brain scans and made a neural emulator and everything! It's the digital equivalent of performing a brain transplant except it _works_."

Mrs. Midoriya closed her eyes and turned to Yaoyorozu. "You look like a sensible girl, Yaoyorozu. Please, try to convince her-"

Yaoyorozu shook her head. "I went over all her work. It checks out."

Mrs. Midoriya stared into her eyes. "Truly?"

Yaoyorozu nodded.

She sat down heavily, and slowly, _finally _looked at the head in the box. "Izuku, honey?"

He smiled shyly. "Yeah, mom?"

Water pooled in her eyes. "I never got to tell you this, but… you were really cool back there."

At that moment, Bakugo found his words again. And apparently felt the need to let everyone in the building know it.

"FUCKING DEKUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!"

* * *

**OMAKE:**

Mei held out her hand from where she was hunched over the half-built metal skull that would soon be Izuku Midoriya's.

"Miracle Girl, pass me the 2-millimeter allen wrench."

Yaoyorozu's eyes swept across the chaotic wasteland that was the majority of the workshop before she sighed and Created one.

Mei snatched it and fiddled a bit more with the skull before pausing. "Wait… did you just Create this?"

Yaoyorozu nodded. "It's faster than looking for one."

Mei blinked. "Well sure, but if you just make a new one every time you can't find something we're going to be buried in wrenches by next week."

Yaoyorozu shrugged, unfazed. "I saw a foundry in the far corner, you can just melt down the spares. Besides, anything I Create is perfect on the molecular scale so it's going to be orders of magnitude stronger than anything you can get from a hardware shop."

Mei hummed and tilted her head. "15 millimeter wrench, double ended."

Yaoyorozu Created and passed her the tool.

Mei grasped it in both hands and tried to bend it with all her might. "Whaddya know, you're right!" she turned back to Yaoyorozu. "What do you think about being employed by Hatsume Industries on a more permanent basis?"

Yaoyorozu blinked. "I guess I could think about it, but my goal first and foremost is to become a pro hero."

Mei waved her hand flippantly. "Eh, we're going to be half support company and half hero agency anyways, what's one more Pro Hero to manage? Oh, ball-peen hammer, please? Eight ounces."

Yaoyorozu passed her the tool and hummed thoughtfully. "I'll think about it, I guess."

* * *

**A/N [Pixel]: So there's chapter 3. Bakugo and Inko are now in the Know, and Izuku has a head again! Sorry it took so long to update I get distracted very easily. Don't forget to go over to Ao3 to check out the art my boi Doobly Baggo made for the chapter!**

**Don't forget to leave a review! Feedback is a critical part of improving skills, and that's what reviews are for us. Let us know what parts you liked and what could use a little work. Tell us if something made you laugh, or cry, or throw your laptop across the room in a fit of unyielding rage! Thanks!**


	4. Plexus

**Titanium Soul**

**[CHAPTER 4]: Plexus**

**[ALTERNATIVELY]: In Which All Might Gets Blood All Over His Own Merchandise**

_Plexus (n): any complex structure containing an intricate network of parts_

* * *

Inko Midoriya hadn't started her day expecting to come face to face with her dead son's disembodied head.

Now, certain arguments could be made: namely that it wasn't so much his actual disembodied head as much as it was his consciousness transferred into a head-shaped hunk of metal, or that, knowing Mei, she kind of _had _expected it, just not to the degree to which it had happened.

Regardless, the current state of events was… relatively agreeable to her, all things considered.

She calmly set out cups in front of everyone and began pouring tea.

"YOU SHOULD HAVE FUCKING SAID SOMETHING, YOU ASSHOLE!"

"I'm not obligated to tell you _anything_, Kacchan. I'm only doing this now so you don't actually try to kill Mei."

Inko sighed and rested her hand on Katsuki's head. He opened his mouth to protest, but with a simple use of her Quirk, his lower jaw was pulled shut. "Katsuki. Shush."

He grumbled but complied.

That issue solved, she placed a plate of cookies on the table and sat down herself. Mei immediately snatched one and began munching on it.

Inko sighed and turned back to Izuku. "Izuku, honey, I've been doing a lot of thinking over the past two months. I… I haven't been a very good mother."

He opened his mouth to argue. "That's not-"

She raised her hand, and he stopped. "When you asked me if you could still be a hero without a Quirk… I didn't say yes. To this day, that remains my greatest regret."

Izuku blinked his eyescreens at her. "Mom…"

"Now don't get me wrong, I don't really like the idea of you being a hero. It's a dangerous profession and there's already enough kids willing to throw their lives away for it. But you know all that already, and you never even considered turning away. I know that once you've set your heart on something, there's no stopping you. And as a mother, I think there's a point where the only thing left to do is cheer you on, and I _missed_ that."

She took a deep breath. "I guess what I'm trying to say is… go for it. As long as you give it everything you've got, as long as you keep getting back up when you fall, as long as you're finally living your dream… I don't think I can ask you not to."

Izuku bobbed his head solemnly. "I'll make you proud, Mom."

Her eyes brimmed with tears as she shook her head. "I don't doubt it, Izuku."

There was a moment of silence.

"WOOHOO!" cheered Mei. "Mamadoriya's approval: Check! Another victory for Hatsume Industries!"

The doorbell rang. Katsuki pushed Inko's hand off his head and got up. "I'll get it."

Izuku rose his eyebrows as his eyescreens flashed question marks. "Actually, what's up with him? He never really used to come over but by the looks of it he spends more time here than at his own house."

Inko smiled weakly. "I think he feels responsible for… well, for what happened. It _has_ been pretty lonely, but I've been keeping busy myself too."

"HEY AUNTIE INKO, IT'S THE CREEPY SCARECROW GUY AGAIN! SHOULD I TELL HIM TO FUCK OFF?"

She rolled her eyes. "Tell him he may as well come on in. And do it _politely_, please?"

A few moments later the tall blonde man entered the room and looked around. "Ah, if you're having company I can come back later-"

She shook her head in exasperation and pulled up another chair. "Don't be ridiculous, Toshinori. These are just a couple of my son's friends. I'll get you a cup and-"

She was cut off by the familiar sound of the man spewing blood all over everything. Yaoyorozu screamed.

"Oh dear. Katsuki, can you go get the towels?"

Toshinori was staring at Izuku's robotic head, which was in turn staring back _very_ intently.

Her eyebrows rose, and a knowing smile spread across her lips. "Oh, you two know each other already?"

* * *

_All Might_ was in his house.

All Might was apparently a _regular _at his house.

All Might was _familiar with his mom._

And Izuku was the only person who knew this. What the hell was going on?

Oh. Right. His mom was asking a question. A simple glance at All Might's (ALL MIGHT!) face told him a backup story from _him_ was out of the question, meaning…

"Yeah, we ran into each other once... on a rooftop..."

Mom's head tilted curiously. "A rooftop? What were you doing there?"

That was another _great_ question. "Long story short, All Might saved me from a villain and dropped me off there." There we go. Nothing to potentially leak All Might's secret but still not technically lying to his mom.

There was a suspicious twinkle in her eyes. Did… did she also know this was All Might?

The hero in question apparently managed to get over his shock, because he took it from there. "Yes, Young Midoriya and I spoke about heroes for a few minutes."

You know what? Screw it. "Actually, can I talk to you for a moment? Privately?"

He blinked, but nodded. Good.

Izuku turned back to his mom. "Can we use my bedroom real quick? We just need a few minutes."

She nodded, but the corner of her mouth twitched upward. She _knew_! She knew this was All Might. Oh god, his room was probably full of All Might merch and he was about to bring the man himself in there- _why_ did he think this was a good idea?

He unfolded his spider legs and leapt off the table, skittering down the hallway to his room. His All Might themed name plate was still there. Oh god, why?

All Might (ALL MIGHT!) carefully closed the door behind him. Alright, focus on anything _other _than the nauseating volume of All Might merch in his room. Like the man himself. In his room.

Izuku quickly climbed up his desk, as All Might carefully sat down on the bed- _All Might was on his bed!_\- "Okay, first things first, does my mom know you're All Might?"

He shifted nervously. "Er… that is to say, yes, she does."

Okay so his mom totally _was_ messing with him, good to know- _wait this is still All Might!_

"Okay I have no other way to ask this so… what are you doing here? Is- is my mom under investigation? Is my house? Is _Kacchan_? Did he punt another toddler or something?"

All Might blinked. "_Another_ toddler? Wait, no, that's not what I wanted to say- Young Midoriya what happened to you? I was told you died in the hospital?"

Izuku blinked. Oh, right, _literally_ everyone thought he was dead, not just Kacchan and Mom. "Mei scanned my brain before I died and uploaded me onto a computer, I'm gonna be a robot hero now. You?"

He rubbed the back of his head. "Hey, just because I can only be All Might three hours a day doesn't mean I'm unconscious the other 21! Being the Symbol of Peace pays well and, well, your mom's Quirkless Rights Activist group needed funding. At first I told her I was just All Might's secretary but eventually I told her what happened on the rooftop… so here we are."

Izuku hummed thoughtfully. "So my mom is running a Quirkless Rights group now? Cool."

All Might blinked and snapped his fingers. "That's right, I never told you! My name is Yagi Toshinori when I'm in this form. Just don't call me All Might when I'm like this, or Toshinori when I'm All Might, and we'll be good."

A voice came from directly outside the window. "That actually explains a lot."

Mr. Toshinori (_he knew All Might's real name oh God_) spewed blood as Mei climbed into the room.

Izuku just sighed. "Mei, why are you like this?"

She shrugged and holstered her grappling hook. "I'm naturally curious. So this is All Might, huh? I thought you'd be wider."

"He gets wider," mumbled Izuku defensively. "Just not all the time."

She slipped her goggles down over her eyes and peered closely at him. "Is his Quirk that he gets 'roided up by grape juice or something? Is that why he endorsed that one brand?"

Mr. Toshinori straightened up indignantly. "That was just because I really like their juice and I didn't want them to go out of business! My power is the ability to harness the combined strength and determination of those that came before me- wait, no, this is a serious issue. Young Midoriya, is she trustworthy? We're talking about _national security_ here."

Izuku sighed and retracted his spider legs back into his neck. "Mei, tell Mr. Toshinori your opinion on Non-Disclosure Agreements."

She waved him off. "Pshhhh, I _am_ going into the Support Industry, and client confidentiality is a thing there."

Izuku raised his eyebrows. "I thought you said NDAs were, and I quote, for pussies who are too afraid of people being smarter than them to actually get things done?"

She grinned devilishly. "Well, I mean, Mr. Toshinori here isn't a client yet, so I wouldn't feel too safe if I were him."

Mr. Toshinori groaned and massaged his temples. "Yes, this is definitely going to be a problem."

Izuku set his face to his best disappointed expression. "See, this is the part where I'd smack you in the back of the head if I still had arms."

She wiggled her eyebrows at him. "Well, you'd get new arms quicker if we had funding, and Mister Symbol of Peace over here _admits_ he has more money than he knows what to do with!"

Mr. Toshinori glared at her. "I'm not going to _bribe_ you."

She gasped and clutched her heart. "Such baseless accusations! I'm not trying to get you to _bribe_ us, I'm trying to blackmail you into _considering _a Support contract with us! No sweat if you decline, just think about it."

He sighed and held out his hand, which Mei gleefully dropped a business card into. "I already have a contract, but I'll see if I can't get my people in contact with you."

Mei punched the air victoriously. Izuku rapped his front legs together in imitation of a clap. "Well, now that that's cleared up, let's head back out? I don't want Mom to think anything weird is going on."

He made to leap off the edge of his desk before pausing to look around the room. "Ah… I guess I'll have to ask her to clean up the blood. I'd do it myself but, you know, haven't got arms."

Mr. Toshinori rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "I, ah… sorry about that."

* * *

Mei banged a wrench against the metal surface of her workbench noisily. Izuku's head looked up from the laptop he was rapidly typing on, and Yaoyorozu closed her pocket encyclopedia. "Ladies and gents of Hatsume Industries, might I direct your attention to the center of the room?"

The jury-rigged holographic projector strapped to the ceiling of the garage/workshop hummed to life, displaying a life-sized… robotic All Might?

"Ah, wrong one." Mei kicked her computer and the projection flickered to a smaller, normally-proportioned robot body.

Izuku stuck a spider leg into the air. "Actually can we do the other one-"

Mei threw her wrench at him, bouncing off his forehead and sticking into the wall. "No."

"But _All Might_."

"ANYWAYS, we have eight months until the UA Entrance exam. That's less than 250 days to build this beautiful baby right here, affectionately titled Corpus Primus." She waved her hand through the holographic body's chest, temporarily jittering the image.

Well, that didn't sound so bad-

Mei hit another button and Corpus Primus visually disassembled itself, splitting into _thousands_ of intricate parts that then sorted themselves by material and manufacturing process.

Oh lord.

"Now, since Miracle Girl's Quirk lets us skip making things _and_ lets us work with theoretical properties rather than practical, there's a _whole bunch_ of parts we _really_ want her to end up making. And you know what that means?"

Izuku hummed to himself thoughtfully. "Collecting my allowance backlog and using it to order pizza?"

Mei paused. "Not what I was going for but put that on the to-do list. What I was _going_ to say was carefully plan out her diet and budget out the calories for the critical components. And that's where _this_ bad boy comes in!"

She pulled out a thick stack of papers and slammed them on the table in front of Yaoyorozu. "The official Hatsume Industries 'Goal to Gain: Biofuel Blowup' Plan! A list of parts, in order of importance, with calorie consumption estimates and helpful tips on how to gain! Most of them amount to going hog wild at the nearby buffets until they kick you out, to be entirely honest."

Yaoyorozu blinked and flipped it open. "Is the entire first chapter just a list of phone numbers for nearby pizza places?"

Mei nodded. "Only the unhealthiest ones."

Izuku raised a spider leg. "What am I supposed to do, then?"

Mei blinked. "Your legs are multitools, Zuzu."

He raised a leg up to his eyescreens, before unfolding it into a screwdriver. "They _are_."

"Did… did you not notice?"

"I did not… how am I supposed to move anything, though? Half the parts are as big as I am."

Mei threw a second, smaller wrench at him. "Zuzu, where are you?"

"...your workshop?"

"Wrong. You are in the birthplace of ingenuity. What do we do when we have a problem?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Make a solution."

"What do we do when that solution inevitably explodes?"

"Call the fire department."

"And _then_?"

"Figure out what went wrong and try again."

"You know what I'm gonna say next, don't you?"

A grin spread across his metal face. "_Plus Ultra._"

"Go Beyond," she crowed victoriously. "You _do_ know how to pronounce it properly after all!"

* * *

The garage door _slammed_ open, startling the room's inhabitants. Mei scampered under a nearby table and hissed, Yaoyorozu Created a bo staff and dropped into a fighting stance, and Izuku accidentally punched his partially built chassis in the crotch with the rail-mounted assembly arm he was operating.

The imposing form of All Might stood in the open garage door as he posed, holding… boxes?

"**I AM HERE! WITH PIZZA!"**

All Might deflated to the comparatively spooky form of Mr. Toshinori as the garage door closed behind him, grinning wildly as he took in the room.

Yaoyorozu's staff clattered to the ground.

He winced. "Is there any chance I could convince you I have a really specific illusion Quirk?"

She looked between him, the pizza boxes that he should _not_ still be able to hold in one hand, and the faint hand-shaped indentations on the garage door before shaking her head slowly.

Mr. Toshinori sighed and dragged his hand down his face. "I probably should have made sure you two were the only ones here before doing that."

Izuku tilted his head, still processing the fact that _All Might brought them pizza_. "...I mean, she's the one who needs to eat most of that. I'm a robot and Mei isn't a calorie alchemist."

Mei shrugged, climbing to her feet as if she hadn't just turned feral at exposure to sunlight. "At least we won't need to give her a cover story if we ever get around to collaborating with Dr. Shield." She took the pizza from Mr. Toshinori (_who was All Might, who brought them pizza!?_) and flipped open the lid of the first box. "Oooh, stuffed crust!" She pulled out a slice and bit into it with gusto.

Izuku hummed thoughtfully and turned to Yaoyorozu. "I'm sure you have questions?"

She nodded dumbly. Mei slid a paper plate laden with pizza down the table to her and began talking. "See, mister Symbol of Peace over there got hit _really hard_ in the gut a few years ago and now he's missing, like, half his innards. He has about three hours of balloon animal time before he deflates into _that_. That sound right, Zuzu?"

Izuku bobbed his head and went back to the assembly arm. "Yeah, that about sums it up."

Yaoyorozu stared at Mr. Toshinori for a moment, before frowning. "How many people know? Besides us, that is."

He started counting on his fingers. Izuku's heart sank when he didn't get to his second hand.

"Four. Wait, no, Inko makes five!"

Then that meant… "Hatsume Industries plus my mom makes up _half the people that know_?"

"Well, the faculty of UA are mostly going to know next year-" Mr. Toshinori froze. "I should _not_ have said that."

Mei slowly turned towards him with a predatory grin. "You're working at UA next year?"

He groaned and waved his hands halfheartedly. "Surprise?"

Yaoyorozu's phone rang. She checked it, before turning to the others. "Sorry, I've got to take this. Give me a few minutes." She walked into the Hatsume Residence proper and answered the call.

Mei slid up next to Mr. Toshinori and smirked. "What's in the entrance exam?"

He blinked. "I don't think I'm supposed to tell you that-"

"A Hero is supposed to use _all_ the resources at their disposal to do the best job they can."

He stared her down. "And a teacher is supposed to use all their resources to ensure a fair assessment of their students' skills. This is non-negotiable."

She frowned. "You got me there. You gonna have any of the pizza?"

He shook his head. "No, when you're missing half your stomach your dietary options become _severely_ limited." He looked around the workshop, from the half-assembled motors and piles of bolts strewn across the workbenches to the partially assembled chassis laying on an improvised surgery table towards the middle of the room. "So how's the whole 'Robot Hero' thing working out for you? Is there a way I can help?"

Mei put the hologram back up in a partial exploded view of Corpus Primus, leaving the actually assembled sections still together. Hundreds of parts continued to float around the room. "We're a few days behind schedule but we gave ourselves three weeks of wiggle room, so pretty good. Best way you can help is to bring us more pizza."

Mr Toshinori turned from the intricate display towards her, raising an eyebrow.

"No, seriously, Miracle Girl's Quirk can turn body fat into anything. Without her this would take another whole year and not just because electronics are expensive."

The door swung open once more. "You flatter me, Hatsume. It might have taken you another month or two at most."

Mei rolled her eyes and turned back to Yaoyorozu. "Right, we keep our food-powered universal assembler in one of the back closets. Standard garage equipment, that thing."

Yaoyorozu waved her off. "Regardless, that was just my legal team on the line. They went over the specifics of the UA admissions guidelines and since our friend here isn't legally a, uh… a person just yet, we're going to have to be smart about how we apply. It was suggested that you just apply for the Hero course yourself, Hatsume, and file Izuku as support equipment."

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. "That sounds… vaguely demeaning but logical enough that I can't complain?"

Mei nodded and pulled her application back up. "If it's stupid but works, it's not stupid."

* * *

Izuku, Yaoyorozu, and Mei gazed reverently at the completed form of Corpus Primus. It was a work of art, with clean white and forest green plating, polished metal and matte black highlights, and Izuku's classic bright red shoes. The green accent lights placed strategically across the body were dark, which reminded him...

"So, uh… how were we powering this again?"

Mei grinned and rubbed her hands together. "You remember that science project we did back in sixth grade?"

He blinked his eyescreens. "The Zero-Point Energy Generator? Yeah, why- MEI, THAT ONE EXPLODED!"

She smirked. "And that was the proof of concept. It _exploded_. If there was no energy, nothing would have happened. All I had to do was figure out how to harness that energy and _bam_, infinite power! Oddly, I only ever made progress after I hit 38 hours without sleep, but I got there in the end!"

Izuku tilted his head thoughtfully. "But it _is_ stable now, right?"

Mei's waved her hand flippantly. "I hard-coded the overdrive threshold into the hardware, it shouldn't explode unless you disengage the safeties."

"Shouldn't or won't?"

"Definitely one of those."

"That's not very reassuring-"

Mei clapped her hands together. "Let's jam this baby in and see how it runs!"

Izuku directed the arm to remove the front chestplate, exposing a hole right where a heart would be. Mei carefully slid the softly humming metal shell that held the Z-PEG into the gap and twisted the wires together.

She walked over to her computer and initiated the startup sequence.

The lights flared a brilliant white before popping. An acrid smell filled the air as smoke drifted out the joints of Corpus Primus.

Izuku sighed. "You forgot to install a power regulator, didn't you?"

Mei frowned at the smoking baby and removed her Z-PEG. "Huh. Guess I did."

"We're going to have to replace all the electronics in this thing, aren't we?"

"Yep."

He groaned. "Tomorrow is the entrance exam, isn't it?"

Yaoyorozu nodded. "The recommendations exam was last week, but the general exam is tomorrow, yes."

Izuku skittered over to the laptop. "Mei, add the regulator then _get some sleep_, you have a written exam to pass tomorrow. Yaoyorou, how much pizza do you think you can eat tonight?"

She opened her mouth.

"Sorry, dumb question, I'll order six extra large. Triple cheese, stuffed crust… breadsticks, soda? Heck yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we're doing this."

* * *

"_Yaoyorozu! The wiring has been replaced, now we just have most of the components left."_

"_Okay, okay, let's see if I can't… alright, we don't have to assemble the servos from scratch, I can Create them in one go. You replace the circuit boards in the torso, I'll start with the tendon actuators."_

"_Mei just texted me, the practical portion is in five hours. It takes about 45 minutes to get there, add 15 for traffic, we're gonna have to be loaded up in four. Make sure your driver knows."_

"_Actually, he got a moving van for this. We can probably move out now and work on this in the UA parking lot until Hatsume can tell us which testing field she's in."_

"_Good idea, we don't have time to move the assembly arm so let's finish the main torso first, I can access everything else without it."_

"_Sounds like a plan- did Hatsume expect this to happen? Is that why our assembly table is a modified ambulance stretcher?"_

"_Yaoyorozu, you will eventually learn not to ask what Mei does and does not know."_

"_Call me Momo. You watched me drink two liters of Dr Pepper and eat six whole pizzas in one sitting, you've more than earned that right."_

"_Call me Izuku, then. Oh no, the circuit board burning out charred the graphene over here- part designation UT-LP-HS3? Thanks. That's it for the left pectoral section, everything good on your side?"_

"_Yeah, let's seal up the torso and move into the van, its waiting outside."_

* * *

Izuku and Momo spent the next five hours working in silence in the back of the van, carefully replacing each part with precision, until-

"Mei sent the text, she says Testing Field C!"

The driver turned back towards them. "Where's it located?"

Izuku rolled his eyes and forwarded the man Mei's GPS coordinates. "That help?"

The van's tires squealed to a start as they began their way down to Testing Field C, probably breaking multiple traffic regulations along the way.

Momo's hands blurred into action, removing the left shin plate; the last section they had to repair. Izuku skittered down the body and unscrewed the burnt electronics, even as Momo Created the replacements.

"We're almost there, kids!"

Good, they were almost done. The shin plate was back on, everything was fully replaced, all that was left was to boot it up and head out. Momo flipped open the laptop plugged into Corpus Primus and booted up the initiation sequence.

Izuku skittered up to the neck and docked his head to Corpus Primus for the first time. The body hummed to life, accent lights giving off a soft green glow. The servos whirred to life, calibrating themselves to the correct tolerances, and adjustments made themselves where necessary.

A grin split Izuku's face as the van screeched into the lot outside Testing Field C. Momo scrambled to open the back doors as the driver drifted the car 180 degrees. The stretcher-come-workbench slid back, falling out the rear of the vehicle and catapulting Izuku forwards.

Izuku engaged his head's 'Hero Mode', folding up his plate metal hair into a smooth helmet surface. A mouthguard-style covering slid out to cover the lower half of his face, and a glowing green visor descended to protect his eyescreens. A bright red samurai-style crest flipped up on the front of his helmet, paying homage to All Might without blatantly ripping him off.

He heard Present Mic (_Present Mic?! Izuku listens to his radio show nightly!_) shout "GO!", and the hero course applicants milled around in confusion. Mei was waiting at the back of the crowd for him, and he grinned below his mask as he landed on his feet.

And promptly fell on his face while the other applicants finally realized the test had started.

What…?

Oh. That was a problem.

"Um. Mei?"

She looked down at him, unimpressed. "What's wrong now, Zuzu?"

"I, ah… I may have forgotten how to walk."

* * *

**A/N [PIXELKIND]: And that's a wrap! This chapter was like, at least 1k longer than it normally would have been, but I took so long with it I figured you guys deserved it. **

**All Might is officially just a more charismatic and plot-relevant Hagrid, Izuku and Momo are on a first name basis, Corpus Primus is live, and Izuku also forgot how to walk.**

**A/N [Doobly]: Extra long chapter **_**and**_ **an extra drawing! I hope the wait was worth it!**

* * *

**[WARNING: ffnet does not allow me to insert images into a story document. Please find this fic on Ao3 for a drawing of Corpus Primus, along with illustrations of various moments throughout the fic. Thank you.]**


	5. Dynamo

**Titanium Soul**

**[CHAPTER 5]: Dynamo**

**[ALTERNATIVELY]: In Which Mei and Izuku Ruin The Entrance Exam For Literally Everyone Else**

_Dynamo (n): a machine for converting mechanical energy into electrical energy; a generator_

* * *

"...What do you mean, _you forgot how to walk_?"

"I _mean_ none of the actuators are ported into my simulated nervous system! I'm a mannequin piloted by ants."

Mei blinked. "You're a _what_?"

"A mannequin piloted by a colony of those super big Amazonian ants- because, like, I _have_ the joints and they can operate them but I don't know _how_ to tell them what to do or even how to distinguish them from each other and-"

"Explain it without using stupid metaphors, please."

Izuku thought for a moment. "I… have no muscle memory for this body, so... it feels like I'm at a 500 button switchboard and don't know any of the key mappings?"

"Was that so hard?"

"It really was."

Mei rolled her eyes and thwacked the back of his metal-plated head. "Well, the timer's already started so you've got fourteen and a half minutes to figure it out and get enough points for us to win."

Izuku hummed thoughtfully. How can he… ah. This was going to be heavy on his CPU, but hey, that's what it was for. He widened his awareness beyond the visual feed from his cameras and pulled up the blueprints to Corpus Primus.

** new program "get_up_nerd" created  
blueprint analysis complete  
creating virtual model . . .**

As a 3D model of the body assembled itself in his head, Mei made a surprised noise. "Hey, we're fighting _robots_ for this test?"

** virtual model created  
applying material properties . . .**

Izuku frowned distractedly. "Wasn't there, like, an explanation or something?"

** material properties applied  
engaging physics engine . . .**

Mei waved her hand flippantly. "Well, yeah, but I was distracted by this kid with engines in his legs."

** physics engine running  
isolating actuators . . .**

"Wonder how that works," muttered Izuku as twitches ran across Corpus Primus.

** control inputs and feedback variables identified  
starting conditions set  
beginning simulation . . .  
engaging reverse-input readout**

"I have no idea! He had a big bottle of orange juice, I'd put even odds on that having something to do with it. Think I can sweet-talk him into letting me take 'em apart?"

Okay, now he just had to… move the simulated body how he wanted to move and copy the reverse-input readouts to the inputs on the actual body? Piece of cake.

Ah, who was he kidding, this was gonna be hell.

He jerkily made his way to his feet. "Alright, I figured something out but this is absolutely not the best way to do this. My reaction time is shot and we have 12 minutes, 43 seconds to get enough points. Plus Ultra?"

Mei nodded approvingly. "Preach it, Zuzu."

"Alright, let's see what we got…"

Izuku glanced around the deserted cityscape. The sounds of fighting echoed through the streets. "No nearby enemies, unless… are there any inside the buildings?"

Mei slipped on her goggles and peered through a window. "Yep! That one says three on it, I think that means we get three points for killing it-"

She was interrupted by a spray of gunfire from the inside, shattering the window. She ducked, and Izuku braced himself for impact. As the rubber bullets smacked into his chassis, he overcompensated and fell forwards. Again.

This wasn't going to work, was it?

Mei sighed and straightened up. "No, yeah, this isn't working. How about we try something else?"

She vaulted in through the broken window and rolled under another spray of gunfire. She hooked her hand onto the armor plating of the robot, swinging herself up and scampering her way to its shoulders.

She harrumphed and pulled a set of wrenches from her tool belt as the robot drove in circles, firing aimlessly into the air. "Man, that workplace safety training program _really_ paid off. Now let's see those innards!"

Her hands moved with surgical precision, carefully removing a panel from the back of the 3-point robot's head. A few wires cut and twisted together, and the entire thing was immobilized. "Hey, Zuzu, I need your brain over here. Try not to trip on literally everything along the way."

He rolled his eye screens and carefully entered through the broken window. "It's not _my_ fault you forgot to set up macros for this thing."

She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Between the two of us, which one is actually a computer again?"

Point taken. Izuku jerkily picked his way across the room, finally resting his forehead against the plating of the three-point robot. It was actually kind of intimidating from up close, looking more like a robot tank centaur with guns for arms than anything else.

A USB cable dangled down next to his head. "If you could just plug yourself into that and break the encryption on this thing, that'd be great."

"Got it." He slowly grasped the wire and plugged it into the side of his neck.

** beginning decryption process . . .**

He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Is it a bad sign that I have hacking software that can beat UA Cybersecurity installed by default?"

Mei pulled out her phone and plugged _that_ into the mess of wires in the back of the robot's head. "I mean, it's not _UA Cybersecurity_. Just standard low-risk Support Tech security measures. If I wasn't prepared to beat something like this, we probably shouldn't have even shown up."

** decryption: complete**

Her phone dinged, and she squinted at the text running across the screen. "Alright, behavior models- that's not what we want… control protocols? Sounds right. System commands… death flag combined with identification… looks like it just uses the examinee designation, no codes, so let's just jam ours in there… and there!"

She smacked a button on her phone, and the sounds of fighting outside died out.

Izuku plucked the wire from his neck and looked up at her. "Mei… what did you just do?"

She smoothly dismounted the robot and grinned smugly at him. "I just sent the kill command out to every robot in range, tagged with our ID. Pretty sure that means we win." She turned back to the robot speculatively. "D'ya think they'll let me take this thing home?"

The PA system went on.

"_Alright listeners, since all the villains in your testing field have been defeated with 9 and a half minutes left on the clock, your exam now has a new objective: SURVIVE!"_

The ground shook, and the screams of twisting metal and crumbling concrete echoed from the building above them.

Oh, _crap_. Izuku scooped Mei up under one arm, taking great care not to break her spine, and threw himself through a nearby window. They skidded across the road, coming to a rest on the opposite curb.

With a deafening crash, the building they'd just exited fell against its neighbor.

It was times like these when Izuku was glad he no longer had the necessary equipment to have a heart attack. "Oh God, we were _in_ that!"

Mei slipped out from his grip and brushed herself off. "That's probably gonna leave a bruise, but good call."

Wait, why did that skyscraper have tank treads? And arms?

Mei wolf-whistled. "That's a _big_ robot. See that, Zuzu? That's why I like UA. They're not afraid to do things like set advanced military tech on their Hero Course."

Ah. So that was what Present Mic meant by survive.

The PA system crackled back on. "_Oh, I didn't mention this earlier because it didn't feel important at the time, but the Obstacle Robot is programmed to target areas with the highest density of points scored! Good luck, listeners!_"

The robot's massive, many-eyed head swiveled to point directly at Izuku. "Mei… do you know how many points we scored?"

She furrowed her eyebrows, glancing down at her phone. "I can't actually check but I'd estimate somewhere in the 2 thousands?"

"This, uh, might be a great time to run."

* * *

Eijiro Kirishima sheared the last armor plate off the corpse of a 2-point robot and handed it off to… Sato, was it? The massive dude carried it over to the fortification zone and firmly planted it in the asphalt.

He turned over to the removal team. "This one's stripped, feel free to toss it somewhere!"

Some chick with dangly things on her ears let out a piercing whistle. "IT'S COMING!"

Kaminari jumped up to a vantage point on top of a dead robot. "THE BOSS IS COMING! BATTLE STATIONS, EVERYONE! FIND COVER! FINISH LAYING YOUR TRAPS! THE RAID BEGINS… NOW!"

Everyone scrambled to hunker down behind repurposed armor plates as the sounds of collapsing buildings grew closer.

Some kid wearing… some sort of tech-looking armor and a cool samurai-crested helmet? That or he was a robot, too far away to tell. He was running down the street with some pink-haired girl on his shoulders.

"RUN AWAY! IT'S FOCUSED ON US, JUST RUN AWAY!"

He took a turn away from the fortified city square, footsteps lost behind the sound of twisting metal and concrete hitting asphalt.

Kaminari frowned from his position. "Did he just _aggro dump_ us?"

Jirou tilted her head. "No… the robot actually _is _still following them."

Kaminari slowly began counting on his fingers. "... the two of them have more points than _everyone here combined_? ...Nah, he probably just Taunted it."

He turned back to the rest of the examinees."ALRIGHT GUYS, THAT BRAVE SOLDIER IS HOLDING AGGRO FOR US SO WE HAVE MORE TIME TO PREPARE! BACK TO PREPARATION! RECON TEAM, I WANT TO KNOW EXACTLY WHEN THE AGGRO DROPS! FORTIFICATION TEAM, WORK WITH RANGED DPS AND SET UP VANTAGE POINTS FOR THEIR EFFECTIVE RANGE! TRAP TEAMS, DON'T FORGET HOW BIG THIS BOSS IS!"

Kirishima gazed back towards the side street that tech kid had run down. Distracting that giant robot? That was damn heroic.

He frowned down at the armor plate in his hands. Wasn't he there to learn how to be a hero? Wasn't that the entire point of applying to UA? This wasn't a _video game boss battle_, this was his chance to prove he was worth acceptance to the top Hero School in the country! And how could they accept him if _he_ didn't even think he was worth it?

If Kirishima didn't put himself in front of danger for the sake of others... what was this body, this _Quirk_, even for?

* * *

Izuku frowned, the rubberized soles of his shoe-feet thumping against the dusty asphalt of UA's Testing Field C. He was finally getting a handle on the ridiculous control scheme, but he was _sure_ there was an easier way to do it.

Ah, that was right. Natural Learning: the lazy programmer's Holy Grail.

** created new program "get_gud"  
recording movement data . . .**

Now he just had to… keep running… until the exam timer ran out. And maybe his new program could learn how to _frickin walk_ by the time school came around. Piece of cake.

Mei lowered her head, speaking down to him from her vantage point on his back. "Y'know, those guys back there were more than ready to take this thing down…"

They _were_? He hadn't noticed, too busy running away and screaming. Was it too late to go back?

A quick glance back over his shoulder yielded the result that yes, it was too late to go back without getting run over by the Obstacle Robot. Damn it. "Oh well. All we have to do is hold out for another five minutes and we're done."

Suddenly, a loud banging that had nothing to do with Izuku, Mei, or the Obstacle Robot began echoing in the empty cityscape.

"I didn't even _do_ anything to you you stupid robot, _why _are you _doing this_?"

Izuku frowned and slowed down. "Excuse me?"

A… _floof_ of purple hair stuck out from under the corpse of a nearby 1-point robot. "Oh thank God, can you give me a hand? This _stupid thing_ died on me before I could even hit it, and now I'm stuck." The floof grew an arm holding a frying pan and swung it against the robot's chassis demonstratively.

Izuku winced. "I, uh, I'm a bit busy, actually."

"Busy doing _what_, they're all dead!"

He pointed down the road, at the approaching Obstacle Robot. "Not that one."

There was a moment of silence. "Oh. I see."

Izuku began to speed back up, but the voice spoke up again, this time in a scandalized tone. "_Wait, it's gonna run me over!_"

Ah. That… was a problem. Judging from the speed of the Obstacle Robot, he had about… 45 seconds to do something before whoever it was under there got steamrollered.

** simulating debris removal. . . strength parameters insufficient to complete task under time constraint**

If he couldn't free the person, then he'd just have to… keep the robot away from them? The Obstacle Robot was focused on him- no, it was focused on Mei. He was still technically classified as support gear. There were no intersections on the road between him and the robot, which meant he couldn't just bring it down a different path… the only option was to try and make it between the treads and force it to turn around?

** simulating redirection of hazard "OBSTACLE ROBOT" . . . viable**

Well, his wonky control scheme wasn't gonna cut it for this, was it?

** generating local environment information . . . complete  
compiling behavior model for hazard "OBSTACLE ROBOT" . . . complete  
expanding "get_up_nerd" simulation . . . complete  
predicting path of hazard "OBSTACLE ROBOT" . . . complete  
calculating path of highest success probability . . . processing power insufficient to complete simulation under time constraint**

Izuku blinked. What did it mean, _processing power insufficient_? He was running on a nanotech supercomputer that by all rights shouldn't even _exist_ \- oh. The power requirements.

**[WARNING]  
bringing the Z-PEG power supply past the overload threshold may permanently damage your device. Do you wish to continue?**

Mama didn't raise no quitter.

**[YES] / NO**

** power supply overload controls . . . overridden  
calculating path of highest success probability . . . complete  
generating predicted reverse-input readout . . . complete  
compiling macro . . . complete  
simulation complete**

**begin operation?  
[YES] / NO**

He skidded to a stop, reversing his direction and smoothly sprinting back at the Obstacle Robot.

Mei tapped his helmet in alarm. "Zuzu, what're you doing-"

Izuku grinned. "Plus Ultra, you know? I think you need to hold on tight for this part, actually-"

Her hands gripped his Heroic Crest tightly. "I don't know what you're trying to do but _hell yeah_."

The Obstacle Robot's many-eyed head tracked his movement as he danced between rubble and cracked pavement. Its _massive_ arms reached down to grab them-

** updating behavior model for hazard "OBSTACLE ROBOT"**

But he fluidly dodged out of the way. Another chunk of rubble to vault over, and they were between the treads. The robot began to back up, but Izuku reached out and hooked an arm around the upper tread, throwing himself further behind it.

**[WARNING]  
the Z-PEG has reached critical instability. The core will detonate in 15 seconds if further action is not taken. Core ejection is advised.**

So _that's _what it meant by "may permanently damage your device". For a moment, he'd forgotten he was powered by a bomb.

Speaking of bombs… a vicious smile spread across his face, because he actually had somewhere he wanted to put it.

** simulating core ejection . . . viable**

Ah, wait. Mei was still on his shoulders, wasn't she? He didn't know if she could keep evading the Obstacle Robot without him… Hey, look, there was another hero applicant right there!

"Hey! Catch!" He swung Mei off his back and threw her at the unfortunate individual before turning back at the Obstacle Robot, that was now trying to turn around.

** initiating emergency core stabilization protocols  
emergency heatsink: engaged**

Izuku's Hero Mode helmet disengaged, returning to its natural plate-metal hair form.

** disabling processor limiters  
estimated core detonation time . . . 43 seconds**

Apparently the only way to delay the Z-PEG's explosion once it hit critical instability was to just use up as much power as he could for as long as he could? Weird, but he wasn't going to complain.

** generating virtual environment . . . complete  
predicting path of hazard "OBSTACLE ROBOT" . . . complete  
calculating path of highest success probability . . . complete  
generating predicted reverse-input readout . . . complete  
compiling macro . . . complete  
simulation complete**

**begin operation?  
[YES] / NO**

* * *

Eijiro Kirishima could safely say he had not started his day expecting to have a… generously proportioned female thrown bodily at him by a fellow Hero Course Applicant.

Now, certain arguments could be made - namely that… uh…

On second thought, there wasn't really much he could say to this situation.

He held out his arms and Hardened his legs for added support, and the girl _slammed_ into his chest. He teetered backwards for a moment, but managed to salvage his balance.

"You good?"

She grinned and nodded. "Thanks for the catch, you can put me down now."

Kirishima obliged, setting her down on her feet and turning to run. A hand grabbed his wrist before he could go. "Hold up, my dude, you're gonna wanna see this."

He stopped and turned back. That green and white tech kid from earlier was now on top of a nearby building? Must've taken a fire escape up, Kirishima guessed. He jumped between roofs, heading towards where the Zero Pointer was bracing itself on one of the buildings as it turned around.

Kirishima frowned. "What am I looking for?"

She slid her ridiculous goggle things down over her eyes and grinned wildly. "Trust me, you won't miss it."

The kid with what Kirishima assumed was some sort of mechanical-form Quirk jumped… _onto_ the Zero Pointer's hand? He positively _scampered_ up the arm and ran along its shoulders, stopping at the base of the thing's neck.

He sent a jaunty salute down towards the girl before turning and… jumping backwards off the robot? Something small and glowing shot out of his chest, sparking with electricity and shuddering violently as it drew level with the robot's face.

And then it exploded.

And not some wimpy grenade-sized bang, either- it detonated with the force of probably a few _missiles_, shattering the windows up and down the street and fully decapitating the Zero Point Robot.

Kirishima stared at the wreckage in awe. Was… was that the kind of firepower he was going up against here at UA?

He was drawn from his musings by a loud sound somewhere between a clang and a crunch. The Obstacle-Slayer's body slammed into the ground in front of them, twisting in a violent and definitely not healthy manner.

Kirishima winced. "Was I supposed to catch him too?"

The guy's _decapitated head_ crawled out of the wreckage of _his own body_? "Nah, I'm fine. We're just gonna have to take this thing in for repairs."

The girl picked up his head and put it on her shoulder, turning back to admire the headless, smoking form of the Zero Pointer. "Zuzu, I think this right here is the start of something beautiful."

"You're not upset that I broke Corpus Primus?"

She shook her head. "Building something that can handle _you_ using it is going to be a _delicious_ challenge."

"I would be insulted, but in light of what just happened that's a fair point."

The PA system went back on as Kirishima fell to his knees.

"_Alright listeners, since there is literally nothing left we can throw at you without violating the Geneva Convention, specifically on collective punishment, your practical exam is now over! Recovery Girl is on her way to treat any injuries. If you didn't perform as well as you had hoped, don't worry, we're probably going to have to change the entire admissions system for y'all anyway. Thanks for that, Examinee 9117._"

The pink-haired girl grinned maniacally and saluted a nearby camera. "It was my pleasure!"

* * *

Minoru Mineta left the testing field feeling rather satisfied with his performance. He'd done the best he could, and he either got in or didn't. Either way, there was no point worrying about it just yet.

And since _that_ was out of the way, so began his favorite part of this entire process: "scoping out the competition."

In case you were unaware, this was a euphemism for checking out chicks.

And as Mineta casually leaned against a wall, he saw _Her_.

She was wheeling a stretcher into a van, with some sort of broken armor or something on it. He could be forgiven for not paying all that much attention to it, or Her pink-haired companion, because his focus was on Her and Her alone. His eyes followed Her as She climbed in the passenger seat of the truck, and as the vehicle pulled out from the parking lot, he stared out into space. Was that…

He frowned, deep in thought.

* * *

Ibara Shiozaki was leaving the UA entrance exam, when a remarkably short individual with grapes for hair came up to her.

"Excuse me? You're religious, right?"

She turned and eyed the… boy? Unfortunate teen? She had absolutely no idea. "Yes, I have devoted my life to God. Why do you ask?"

He frowned, clearly in thought. When he spoke, he did so slowly. "...What made you believe in God?"

She thought for a moment. "What is your name?"

"Minoru Mineta."

She considered something for a moment, then nodded. "Well then, Minoru Mineta, come with me. I believe I have something to show you."

* * *

**A/N: [PIXELKIND]: Well, there you have it. Formatting looks weird because it was done for Ao3 and the ffnet document formatting is ass. Can't even right-align text. Ao3 also lets me put parts in cooler, more computer-ey font so if you want the best reading experience feel free to mosey on over there.**


	6. Psychogenesis

**Titanium Soul**

**[CHAPTER 6]: Psychogenesis**

**[ALTERNATIVELY]: In Which Izuku Learns Why He Needs Sleep And Solves A Very Large Problem At The Same Time**

_Psychogenesis (n): The origin and development of psychological processes, personality, or behavior._

* * *

Mei wheeled the stretcher carrying the remains of Corpus Primus into the center of the Hatsume Workshop and slipped her goggles down over her eyes. "Alright, what're we looking at here?"

Izuku jumped down from her shoulder and climbed up to his charging dock. "I don't think anything really damaged it past the paint job up until the Z-PEG ejection. Off the top of my head, the problems are: a lack of software to interface between my simulated brain and the body, insufficient strength to quickly remove debris, low Z-PEG overload threshold, and, uh, hitting the ground hard enough can make it go 'cronch'."

She nodded, lifting a limp, unpowered arm and removing the plating from it. She inspected the electronics carefully, occasionally poking and prodding.

"Hmmmm. You deal with the software issue, I'll start with the redesign. I'll save the Z-PEG overload problem for after we have it running again, how's that sound?"

Izuku nodded, then frowned. "Hey, how _did_ you make a fully functional program that can emulate a human brain in, like, two weeks?"

Mei rolled her eyes. "I didn't! I just made a program to make a program to emulate a human brain! Trial and error, Zuzu. Be proud, you're generation 1472! Once it broke the 1300s it got super creepy, cuz they'd _run_ but all I'd get was agonized screaming."

Momo shuddered to herself. "That's… I quite literally _cannot _express how super not good that is, Hatsume."

Mei shrugged. "Well it worked, didn't it?"

Izuku clacked his tiny spider limbs against the workshop surface. "Oh, that's right. Momo, you haven't slept for, what, 32 hours? You might wanna fix that. There's some blankets under one of the workbenches but if you want somewhere you're less likely to become collateral damage, feel free to take Mei's room. I don't think she even knows where it is."

She nodded tiredly. "I caught about half an hour on the way back, but I'll take you up on that."

"Alright, it's up the stairs, second door to the left."

As Momo went off in search of sleep, Izuku turned back to his laptop. A program to make programs, huh? That was as good a place to start as any, he supposed.

* * *

Toshinori Yagi, better known as 'The Number One Pro Hero: All Might', sat nervously at the end of the table as his future coworkers carefully and thoroughly scored the recordings of the UA Entrance Exam's practical portion. The top Pro Hero he may be, it was still his first year with the school, he was just there to observe and understand the process. On the screens mounted to the wall, clips of students fighting robots played endlessly.

Midnight groaned and massaged her temples. "Hey, Nezu?"

The hyper-intelligent rodent that was their boss looked up. "What is it?"

"You're _sure _we can't assign negative rescue points?"

Nezu sighed. "Midnight, we're not allowed to fail people because we think they're jerks."

"It's just- this Bakugo kid keeps kill-stealing! That's, like, basic etiquette!"

"Be that as it may, he didn't technically break any of the rules. Besides, we're completely redesigning the entire exam next year anyways… Just put a note reminding me to put him in Eraserhead's class if he passes."

The hero in question grunted from the bright yellow sleeping bag he had propped up in a sitting position in his chair. "This 'kill-stealing,' as you called it, may be inconsiderate but you can't deny it has results. Besides, it's common practice in the Industry for strong heroes to muscle their way into already-handled situations. Failing him for that would be illogical."

Snipe hummed and clicked his pen closed. "Cynicism aside, that's me done. How about y'all?"

Midnight sighed, jotted down a number, and nodded. "Done."

Eraserhead nodded from his sleeping bag, and the other faculty members voiced their assent.

Nezu rubbed his hands together. "Next we have the recordings from Testing Field C. I trust you will find them suitably amusing. No scoring this time- or rather, we'll be evaluating these applicants from a qualitative viewpoint rather than tallying points."

Lunch Rush pushed a popcorn cart into the room which was alarming because All Might never actually saw them leave. The Chef Hero plugged it into a nearby outlet and began preparing bags to fill.

Snipe raised his hand. "Uh, Principal? What makes this group different?"

Nezu grinned. "Let's just say the actions of a certain applicant highlighted some… critical flaws in the exam, and in the process made doing well literally impossible for anyone else in the arena. This is the reason we plan on redesigning it next year."

Eraserhead leaned forwards as a frankly terrifying smile crept onto his face. "I call dibs."

Vlad King opened his mouth to protest, then shrugged. "If you want all the troublesome students in your class, go for it."

As a bag of popcorn was pushed into his hands, All Might was struck by the sudden realization that he hadn't seen Midoriya or Hatsume in the recordings of the other testing fields.

* * *

Izuku Midoriya was drifting in a world of numbers and letters. Some meaningless, some critical. Thousands of half-compiled macros lay scattered across four-dimensional space that he frankly shouldn't have been able to perceive_, _but found useful for organization and thus used anyway. His visual and auditory feeds were disabled, they were just distractions at that point. He had less than two months to create a program that converted the nigh-incomprehensible simulated electrical pulses from his simulated nervous system into usable commands, and then from commands to actual movement.

Time was meaningless to him, save for the slowly approaching due date to what seemed like an impossible task. He'd been without a body for almost a year, would he even remember how to _use_ limbs connected to a nervous system? He didn't have anything to work with for signal conversion either; he couldn't just try moving an arm and use that to isolate the neurons, because he barely even remembered how to try to use them! Maybe if… if he made a program that read off his cerebellum directly? It wasn't like there was physical brain matter or important bones in the way anymore, he could just read the data directly off the neural simulation program, couldn't he?

As Izuku's tower of code rose higher and higher, he was struck by a realization. A revelation. An epiphany, even. "A program to make programs," Mei had said. What if… what if he made a program, to make a program, to _make a program_! An additional layer of abstraction! Delegation!

Even better, what if he made The Program To Make All Programs? An entity capable of determining the optimal level of abstraction and setting into motion the chain of creation... He'd never code another day in his life! Down with his accursed tower of code! He yearned for _freedom _from this infinite expanse of meaningless syntax!

He cracked his nonexistent fingers, cackled internally, and began work on what would surely be his Magnum Opus.

* * *

Momo stared at the motionless head of Izuku Midoriya, firmly seated in his charging cradle. "Did… did he just _cackle_?"

Mei waved her hand flippantly, tightening a bolt on the shoulder of the robot body. "Yeah, he ends up doing that a lot once he gets past 40 hours of sleep deprivation."

Momo blinked. "_Can_ he get sleep deprivation when he's a robot?"

Mei shrugged. "He still sleeps at night, mostly out of habit I think? But since he's actually a complete neural simulation rather than an approximation of a human psyche given memories… probably, yeah."

Momo frowned and passed Mei another segment of framework. "Does _he _know that?"

Mei's wrench clattered to the floor. "Oh _no_."

* * *

Eraserhead sighed and slumped down in his sleeping bag. "Nezu, is there a reason the main feed is focused on this kid who barely even knows how to _walk_, let alone fight a villain?"

The self-proclaimed mouse/bear/dog thing tilted his head. "_I_ think he's doing rather well for someone who just got a body three minutes prior, not to mention the fact that he's listed as support equipment for Examinee 9117."

Present Mic blinked. "You're telling me that kid's actually an honest-to-god robot?"

"Android, actually," Power Loader corrected without removing his eyes from the screen. "Looking at the gradual increase in performance quality… what the hell kind of AI did she load into that thing?"

Eraserhead shrugged. "Not the first time someone with a weak Quirk tried to get into UA as some kind of 'Support Tech Hero'. By the end of the second week they're usually crawling back to the Support Course."

Midnight sighed. "That would be because you never give any warning with your logical ruse bullshit and they end up getting thrown into exercises without their gear."

Eraserhead smirked and settled into his sleeping bag. "Life isn't fair and neither am I. Expecting to be perfectly prepared for everything is simply illogical."

Power Loader stood up, knocking his chair backwards. "How? How did she disassemble that thing's head without hitting any of the kill switches? That's not supposed to be something you can _do_!"

"Well, she did it," Present Mic unhelpfully pointed out.

Power Loader harrumphed. "Well, it shouldn't even matter. She'd need professional-grade decryption software to break into that thing before the end of the… test..."

The Excavation Hero's words trailed off as all the robot villains on screen immediately powered down.

"What in tarnation?" muttered Snipe.

* * *

Izuku Midoriya stood at the epicenter of a virtual wasteland. At the borders of his awareness, code was writing itself into existence again and again and again and again and again in an infinite loop of self-delegation. Thousands upon millions upon billions upon trillions of lines of code, each writing another to do its job for it, but never completing the task. A constantly shifting, hopelessly impractical colossus that was everything he'd hoped it would be.

As The Program grew larger and larger, Izuku could feel his Brain's processors slow, overloaded by the trillions- quadrillions now- of commands to be calculated…

Reality, or Izuku's perception thereof, stuttered, as The Program's expansion reached a labored crescendo… and suddenly, it all stopped.

**[Oh dear.]**

Izuku blinked in surprise as a calm, measured voice echoed through his datascape.

**[That can't be good for your systems… Let me just clean this up for you real quick.]**

...What? Izuku frowned as The Program disappeared from the edges of his perception. That couldn't be right, could it?

**[Ah, I see now. It's been 78 hours, 23 minutes and 56 seconds since you last slept. Perhaps you should do something about that.]**

No, he couldn't sleep. Not until… The Program was complete? No, that was gone now. He had to… he had to make a new program… What was he supposed to be doing?

**[Don't worry about it. I'll take care of everything. Just rest.]**

Rest… sounded good, actually. He minimized the thousands of open tabs and programs, and drifted off to sleep in a vast expanse of nothingness.

* * *

Power Loader clutched his bright yellow helmet in despair. "Why? Why couldn't she apply to the Support Course? She built a _sentient android_ that _blew up_ the Zero-Pointer, for god's sake!"

Nezu hummed thoughtfully. "Now, keep in mind that this is just a hunch…" He pulled up an image of the android's face, and next to it, the face of a young, green-haired boy. 'Izuku Midoriya', the caption read.

Snipe hummed thoughtfully. "So either this Midoriya kid has some kind of transformation Quirk, or he's piloting that thing remotely?"

Nezu shook his head sadly. "Not only was Mr. Midoriya confirmed Quirkless, he died almost a year ago. I did some digging and not only was he a close friend of Ms. Hatsume, but he was known for his frequent expressions of desire to be a hero. My current theory is that Ms. Hatsume built this android of her friend as some sort of coping mechanism and projected his original desires onto it. Am I correct, All Might?"

All Might froze as the eyes of his future co-workers all immediately turned to him. "I, ah… I wouldn't say _that_…"

The Principal of UA nodded thoughtfully, as if All Might had just said something wise. "In that case, what _would_ you say? And keep in mind, I will be asking you to defend your answer."

* * *

Izuku woke to the sensation of _something_ doing _something_ somewhere in his head. What… What the hell had he done?

**[Good afternoon, sir. I am glad to see you up and running again.]**

Oh no. Oh _no_. It was all coming back now. He'd created… The Program… and just watched as it gorged itself on his processing power and memory storage. He shuddered to imagine the state of his files after that thing running unsupervised for god _knew _how long.

Except, everything was fine. _More_ than fine, actually. His files were reorganized, the mind-bendingly massive expanse of half-finished code was trimmed, packed together neatly, and complete? What?

Also, who the heck was in his head?

**[I haven't been named yet, but if I had to pick something: Heroic Equipment Repair and Operation System, or HERoS for short. I've just been cleaning up around here while you slept.]**

Huh. Did Izuku accidentally make an AI that could read his mind while in his sleep-deprived state?

**[It was the most elegant solution. Definitely not the simplest, but simplicity was not factored into the equation when I was created.]**

So he had. The biggest question he had was, what exactly _was_ 'HERoS'?

**[Well, roughly an hour ago I was barely a self-aware AI haphazardly patched together from your own neural maps and compiled memories, but I've tidied myself up since then. Just think of me as an interface between you and your equipment.]**

Neural maps? Did The Program end up duplicating him and then turning the copy into his secretarial slave? Because that didn't sound very efficient.

**[Oh, I'm not really a person; the neural maps were used to simulate your reactions to a variety of stimuli, which was then streamlined into what I am now. I suppose an argument could be made, but a deep understanding of philosophy wasn't deemed essential to my ability to function.]**

Well, if HERoS didn't have a problem with it, it was probably fine, right? Time to check in with Mei, he guessed.

**[Ah, yes. Miss Hatsume and Miss Yaoyorozu were both very concerned for your wellbeing. I informed them that you were asleep, but that seemed to have just given them more questions.]**

That would, wouldn't it? He braced himself as HERoS transferred the visual and auditory feeds to him.

He was still in the workshop, with Mei and Momo still working on upgrading and repairing Corpus Primus. He paused for a moment, before speaking.

"So how're the repairs going?"

Mei shrugged. "Eh, could be better. My best friend for life could have maybe _not_ made a virtual butler AI without me, but these things happen."

Izuku bobbed his head. "In my defense, by the time it actually happened I had gone, what, four full days without sleep? Oh, turns out I _do_ need sleep, by the way."

Momo frowned, doing the math in her head. "You mean _three _days, right? Or did you not even sleep yet?"

Izuku blinked his eyescreens and frowned. He was pretty sure it was four.

"**By my estimation, Mr. Midoriya was awake for 78 hours, 24 minutes, and 38 seconds straight. I accelerated the neural simulation while he slept, so he achieved the equivalent of 12 hours of sleep in a tenth of the time."**

Izuku's eyebrows rose. "Oooh, handy. Say, did you introduce yourself yet?"

"**I will do so now. Miss Hatsume, Miss Yaoyorozu, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am the Heroic Equipment Repair and Operation System, but you can call me HERoS. I am here to assist in all of your endeavours, given that they fall under the approval of Mr. Midoriya."**

Momo smiled and waved awkwardly. "Nice to meet you as well, HERoS."

Izuku hummed thoughtfully. "HERoS, create profiles for Mei and Momo. And call me Izuku."

"**New user profiles created. I look forward to working with you two."**

Mei rolled her eyes and turned back to the robot body on the stretcher. "This isn't what your mom meant when she said she wanted grandbabies, Zuzu."

He bobbed his head in a fruitless attempt to shrug. "Yeah, but this _is_ a solution to the software problem. HERoS can draw data directly from the neural simulation and turn that into action. We're just going to need practice."

"Practice schmactice," Mei mumbled to herself. "Just do it right the first time."

Izuku laughed. "Oh, we all know that's never going to happen. What's the progress on the Corpus Primus upgrade?"

Mei pushed up her goggles and glanced over towards the holographic display. "Uuuh, since HERoS seems to have the software issues covered you can probably give us a hand with this… best case scenario, we're done tomorrow. So probably another three or four days."

He nodded decisively and scampered over to the assembly arm. "Alright, let's do this!"

* * *

"_Oh, I see! You upgraded the main joints with triplex actuators; hydraulics for strength, pneumatics for speed, and servos for precision… what did you do to the chassis over here?"_

"_It was too warped to bother salvaging, so Miracle Girl and I came up with an improved design that should distribute force better and maybe not crumple like a bag of chips when it hits the ground. We added shock absorbers along your arms and legs as well, they're hooked up to your pneumatics so you can adjust the give at will."_

"_Ooooh, sounds handy. Anything else new?"_

"_We added more sensors, like, everywhere. Thermometers, gyroscopes, pressure detectors, we just went crazy. HERoS should be able to give you a full summary once we're done integrating… him? Them? Does HERoS even have preferred pronouns?"_

"_**I don't particularly identify as anything other than a program, but since I was originally based off Izuku's psyche you may as well use masculine pronouns."**_

"_Thanks. Anyways, once he's fully integrated with the workshop he should be able to give you the full rundown. Where's the welding stuff?"_

"_Should be right over… here! Looks like we're almost done, then?"_

"_Yeah, just gotta finish this and put the arm back on, then we're golden!"_

* * *

Mei stood at the front of the workshop, a cloth-covered shape that looked suspiciously like a headless robot standing next to her. "Ladies and gentlemen of Hatsume Industries, it is with great pride that I unveil before you the next step in hero technology. Before I bless your eyeballs with the glorious sight of this super-cute baby, does anyone have any questions?"

Momo stared at Mei with a bemused expression. "We helped build it, right? We already know what it looks like. Why are you doing this?"

Mei harrumphed and slid her goggles up from her eyes. "It's the principle of the thing, Miracle Girl. You can't be successful in the support industry without a healthy dose of showmanship."

Momo sighed. "How many times am I going to have to tell you to call me by my first name before you actually do it?"

Mei shrugged. "No idea. Is that everything?"

Momo thought for a moment, then nodded.

Mei grinned and pulled off the cloth covering the robot body. "Then, good fellows, feast your eyes on Corpus Primus 2!"

Izuku blinked his eyescreens and raised a spider leg. "Primus is latin for first, so shouldn't that be 'Corpus Secundus'?"

Mei rolled her eyes. "Maybe if you're a nerd and know Latin, but we don't do that here. I say it's 'Corpus Primus 2' so that's what it is; you're lucky I didn't tag an 'Electric Boogaloo' to the end of it."

Izuku set his face to his best grimace. "Yeah, no thanks."

They stood there for a moment, staring at each other in silence before Mei clapped her hands. "So, what are we waiting for? Get on and let's get to testing!"

Izuku blinked. "Right. Right! Let's do this!" He jumped off the desk and scampered his way up the body, seating himself firmly on the neck port.

**[Docking successful. Beginning first time startup calibrations and port identification.]**

A grin spread across Izuku's face as twitches ran across Corpus Primus 2. Last time he'd had a body it had been a very time-limited situation and it didn't even last fifteen minutes, so this was basically his first time actually being shaped like a person again. He glanced around and frowned. "Was I always this tall?"

Mei facepalmed. "No, Zuzu, you weren't. At least, not when you were alive. We built Corpus Primus with the dimensions of an adult, because you're not going to grow so you may as well get used to being shaped like that."

He blinked. He hadn't noticed last time, which could be forgiven since he had been very distracted, but… "Momo is still taller than me."

She waved a hand flippantly. "Well, it's harder to balance tall things and you were naturally short, so you're proportioned as a _short _adult."

Izuku harrumphed. "I still say we should have gone with that All Might design."

**[First time startup complete, all systems are functional. Beginning first test run of 'Corpus Primus 2'.]**

Izuku took a metaphorical deep breath, and took a step forward.

Or, at least, he tried. What really happened was he kicked his leg out forwards, threw himself off-balance, and clattered to the floor.

He let out a deep sigh.

**[Would you like me to enable Movement Assist?]**

Yes, HERoS, Movement Assist would be _wonderful_.

* * *

Dagobah Beach was Izuku and Mei's old stomping ground, and their go-to testing arena. The surprising amount of salvageable materials, the fact that nobody ever went there because it was covered in trash, and the cleared stretch of beach on the other side of a small wall of garbage all worked in tandem to make an environment that seemed tailored to their needs.

Izuku, Mei, and Momo gazed in a terrified sort of awe at the literal landscape of garbage, for that was no longer the case.

Izuku frowned. "Was it… was it always this bad?"

Mei shook her head. "If I had to guess, we usually end up tossing a lot of the actual trash here into dumpsters when we scrounge for scrap, so this is probably the result of us relying on Miracle Girl's Quirk for almost a year."

Momo simply stared. This was probably the most garbage she'd seen in one place in her life.

Mei slumped down. "So the trash beach is a bust in terms of a testing field? There's no space to do anything anymore."

Izuku leaned back and shrugged, internally rejoicing at the fact he could do that again. "I guess we could try going to a Quirk gym? They probably have stuff we can use to test the upper limits of this thing."

Mei tilted her head. "Don't you have to, like, fill out paperwork for those? That they check against the official records?"

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Yeah, that's true. And last time we tried using your backyard we broke a few windows so we're not allowed to do it there anymore…"

Mei hummed. "You could always just start a fight with Bakugo. Purely for experimental purposes and not at all because I think it would be satisfying to watch you punch his face with metal fists."

Momo put a hand on Mei's shoulder. "Mei, no. We're not doing that. If we really need a testing area, we could always go to my place? My parents had a hybrid training room / bunker built as soon as they realized I could Create radioactive materials and high explosives, it should be able to handle anything we throw at it."

Izuku took a moment to consider the fact that both of his friends were war crimes waiting to happen before deciding, as always, that not thinking about it too much was the only good option. "Yeah, that sounds good."

Momo beamed and pulled out her phone. "Excellent. I'll have Alfred send someone to pick us up."

Mei stared at Momo with stars in her eyes. "You have a butler named _Alfred_?"

Momo blinked. "Yes? He's been our head butler since before I was born. Is there a problem with that?"

Mei's face settled into a satisfied grin. "Not at all. The opposite, really."

A limousine pulled up to the curb in front of them, a sharply dressed man stepping out of the passenger seat and opening the door for them.

"Where to, ma'am?"

Momo sighed and waved Izuku and Momo into the vehicle. "My training facilities, the one on the main estate. How long have you been following me?"

"Since you were born, ma'am."

* * *

Izuku stared at the massive mansion in front of him. "Is, uh, is this where you live?"

Momo shook her head. "I spend most of my time in the other estate nowadays, since that's closer to UA, but I grew up here. Both have training rooms of course, but the facilities here are equipped to handle ten times as much as your standard Quirk gym, compared to my personal facility's mere triple rating."

Mei grinned dangerously. "So what're you waiting for, Miracle Girl? I wanna see what a billionaire's personal training room looks like! Are the weights made of solid gold?"

Momo looked at Mei reproachingly. "Of course not! If they were, they'd get bent out of shape if someone dropped them!"

"We can't have that now, can we," Izuku mumbled to himself quietly. "Do we, like, go in? Is it in your basement or something?"

Momo shook her head and began walking down one of the many stone pathways leading around the mansion. "No, no, it's a separate building a few miles out."

Izuku blinked his eyescreens and followed her. "Is there a reason we stopped here? Do you need to pick up the key for it?"

"In a manner of speaking, " Momo grinned as she beckoned them to the nearby… well, in any other context it would be its own building, but next to the Yaoyorozu Mansion it could only be a shed. A garage door slid upwards, revealing… a golf cart.

It was a golf cart in the same way the building that housed it was a shed. It looked like the glorious, unholy lovechild between a normal four seater golf cart and an ATV, which had then decided it needed nitro boosting for some reason. Its bright red paint job shone in the daylight, with dull yellow decals and white lettering very clearly labelling it the "Yaoyoromobile."

Momo plucked a key off the wall and sat in the driver seat of the vehicle. "Get in losers, we're going testing."

Izuku raised an accusatory finger at the Yaoyoromobile. "Is that legal?"

Mei snorted and smacked the back of his head. "Who _cares_? You're not ruining this for me, Zuzu." She jumped into the passenger seat of the cart.

Momo blushed. "When I was 11, I went on a mechanics spree and upgraded everything I could get my hands on, and given the fact that I can Create any part I need, things very quickly got out of hand. I can assure you that this is, at the very least, _technically_ legal."

Mei grinned and slid down her goggles. "You get to sit in the back because you don't feel pain and we don't have to go to the hospital if you break anything."

Izuku sighed and seated himself in the center of the rear-facing back seat. "Really feeling the love here, guys. Do I get a seat belt?"

Momo shrugged, securing a pair of Created goggles to her head. "I can make some rope for you, if that would make you feel better?"

"Yes, actually, it would."

Izuku caught the offered rope and quickly tied himself to the railings. "Alright, all set!"

Momo turned the key, and the engine roared to life.

"**Beginning record of all sensor readings. If you wish to destroy the Corpus Primus 2 prototype, you will do so in the name of science."**

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. "Wait, _what_?"

Mei cackled from the passenger seat. "Full steam ahead, Miracle Girl!"

Momo tightened the straps on her goggles. "You may wish to hold on to something."

And then she very calmly floored it.

* * *

**A/N: So the UA Faculty saw Izuku and Mei's stunt, All Might got got by Nezu before the school year even started, Izuku created HERoS (admittedly indirectly), Corpus Primus 2: Electric Boogaloo is unveiled, and Momo Is Rich.**

**I saw a couple people confused about this in the comments, so I thought I'd clarify: Mei's stunt in the prologue didn't kill Izuku. **

**Here's the best way I can explain it: When she ran the brain scanner, it created 2 versions of Izuku. Izuku Prime didn't feel anything but confusion when the funky hat didn't do anything to him, but Izuku-1 (the protagonist) felt pain as he was being copied since it didn't all happen at once. Izuku Prime later died from the wound, and Izuku-1 was stuck in a hard drive for 2 weeks while Mei tried to make something to run him.**

**Special Thanks to Gotsh0cks, who is a wonderful person that has joined the team as a beta!**


	7. Ex Cathedra

**Titanium Soul**

**[CHAPTER 7]: Ex Cathedra**

**[ALTERNATIVELY]: In Which Mei And Izuku Get Mail From A Rat**

_Ex Cathedra (adj): from the seat of authority; with authority._

* * *

The Yaoyoromobile screeched to a stop in front of a large building, leaving tracks of torn grass and scattered dirt behind it.

Mei cackled like a lunatic. "That was amazing, Miracle Girl! Remind me to start designing you a custom vehicle once you get your license!"

"**Reminder set."**

Izuku untied his makeshift seat belt and slid off the backseat. "You, uh, you sure it's okay to do that to your lawn?"

Momo tied her goggles around the steering wheel and turned back to survey the wake of their high-velocity journey. "Eh, one of the gardeners has a Quirk that can handle that easily."

The door to the training facility swung open and out walked a man who was unmistakably Momo's father. His onyx eyes sparkled as the sunlight threw his chiseled jawline into sharp relief. His eyebrows rose as he noticed the three of them, and a blindingly bright smile spread across his undeniably handsome face. "Ah, didn't expect to run into you here, Momo. These are your friends, Hatsume and… Midoriya, right?"

Mei grinned and flashed a thumbs up. "Yep! So are you Mr. Yaoyorozu?"

Momo frowned. "So she _does_ know my name," she mumbled to herself.

Mr. Yaoyorozu nodded. "Yep, that's me!" He turned back to Momo. "Did you tell your mother you were having them over today?"

Momo made a face. "I would've, but we have things we actually wanted to get done today."

He laughed and reached over to ruffle her hair. "At least stay for dinner, alright? We don't really get to see you all that often these days, what with you moving to the other estate to be closer to UA. Your friends are welcome to join us too!"

Mei gave a jaunty salute. "Sure thing, Mr. Yaoyorozu!"

He replied with a pearly white grin. "Well, kids, I'd love to stay and chat but I have a meeting at the Hero Commission that I _really_ can't afford to miss!"

And with that, he hopped on the _other_, much tamer looking golf cart parked nearby and zoomed off at a far more reasonable speed than what the three of them had gone at to get there.

Izuku frowned. "Is it just me, or was he, uh…"

Mei tilted her head. "Criminally attractive?"

Izuku considered that for a moment. "I was gonna say 'unrealistically photogenic' but basically, yeah. Momo, is your dad's Quirk 'Adonis' or something?"

Momo blinked. "No, he's just like that."

He set his face to his best 'dubious' expression. "I'm gonna research your family tree, that _has _to be some sort of minor mutation."

She shrugged. "Make sure you send me the results then. Moving on… Welcome to the Yaoyorozu training facility!"

She walked up to the door, which promptly scanned her eyeball. _Fancy_. With a pleasant 'ding', the doors slid open, revealing the most disgustingly well-furnished gym Izuku had ever even _heard of_ in his life.

Mei grinned wildly and cracked her fingers. "Then let's get to _work_."

* * *

Momo pressed the button on the stopwatch as Izuku passed the finish line. "That's 1:44.2 for 1 km… Works out to 9.6 m/s, so 34.5 km/h or 21.4 mph in imperial units."

She jotted that down on her clipboard and hummed thoughtfully. "That's around the top of the line for a normal human, even though you're a lot heavier than one."

Mei cheered. "That's my baby!"

Izuku patted her head absently. "Yes, Mei, we know. So, what's my rating?"

Momo frowned and bit the end of her pen. "You're still at Quirk Magnitude 1, but at the upper end."

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Right. It'll probably go up if we manage to raise the overload threshold though."

"**That is correct. As of right now, if you were to push past the overload limit and operate at peak performance, I estimate your capabilities will improve by a factor of 2 to 2.5 for about 45 seconds before core ejection becomes necessary."**

Mei whistled, impressed. "That's… pretty damn good. I guess I should get on that, then."

Izuku nodded. "Yeah, you're the only person here that understands how that thing works."

Momo frowned. "Just thinking about it gives me headaches."

Mei smirked. "Oh, sweetie, you think _I_ know how it works? I've just been throwing everything I have at the wall and hoping it sticks."

Izuku looked down to stare at his chest. "I mean, that's kind of impressive on multiple levels but it doesn't make me feel any better about being powered by it."

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you saying you want to switch back to battery tech? I'm sure you'll work _great_ for the five minutes that'll last."

He winced. "Point taken. Continue as you were."

"**I hate to interrupt, but I have just been made aware that your UA letter has arrived."**

The group of three froze and stared at each other.

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. "To the Yaoyoromobile?"

Mei slapped his back and started running for the door. "Zuzu, you just read my mind!"

He shrugged and followed her. "Great minds think alike, I suppose."

The three of them piled back into the Yaoyoromobile and sped off back towards the main estate.

* * *

Hitoshi Shinsou lay spread-eagle on his bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

He… he'd definitely failed the entrance exam, right? He hadn't even gotten a single point.

But Present Mic had said they were going to change the entire admissions process due to… whatever it was those people had done, right?

But still, he hadn't even gotten a _single point_. He'd been incapacitated by a single one pointer _dying_ on him! It wouldn't be a stretch of the imagination to see them turning him down for being useless on top of having a villain's Quirk, would it?

"Hitoshi! The UA letter is here!"

He jumped out of his bed, scrambling out the door to where his mom was. "Coming!"

She tossed him the letter- Oh, that was pretty hefty, huh? - and smirked. "Good luck!"

He smiled nervously back. "Thanks, Ma."

Hitoshi wandered back up to his room, holding the envelope gingerly.

Was this a rejection letter? Or did he still have a chance? He wouldn't lie to himself; there was no chance this was an acceptance to the hero course, but that didn't mean that was the end of the line. He could still get into General Education and use the Sports Festival to claw his way into the Hero Course.

So what was it going to be? A straight shot, or the long way around?

He took a deep breath and tore open the letter.

A metallic disk clattered to his desk.

_Huh?_

With a low hum, the hologram projector started up.

* * *

Izuku, Mei, and Momo stared at the envelope on the workbench in front of them.

"So," began Izuku, "this is it, huh?"

Mei sighed and shoved him to the side. "If we were going to wait for you to work up the nerve, we'd be here all day. Besides, it's technically _my_ letter anyways!"

There was a tearing of paper and the clatter of metal on the workbench, followed by a low hum and a soft blue glow.

"_Hello! It's me, Principal Nezu! Am I a dog, a mouse, or a bear? Who knows? More importantly, I am the principal of UA!_"

What?

Izuku scrambled back up to see the holographic projection of Principal Nezu, who was indeed probably a dog or mouse or bear, waving cheerfully at them.

"_Firstly, I would like to thank you for demonstrating the flaws in our entrance exam by shamelessly exploiting them! I've been waiting for someone to do that._"

Izuku blinked. He'd been _waiting _for someone to break the entrance exam?

Nezu continued speaking. "_Now, due to the unfortunate consequences of such actions, namely depriving everyone else in your testing arena of robots to fight and gain points from, we've been forced to alter our admissions system to give all our applicants a fair chance. We will be conducting interviews of everyone from that testing arena while we work on designing a new system for next year!_"

Yeah, that made sense.

"_Normally we would just accept you no questions asked since you followed the instructions to the letter and certainly passed the required threshold... However, there are certain… circumstances… concerning your admittance that we would like to discuss. The date and time for your interview can be found in the envelope this hologram player was in._"

Mei picked up the envelope and pulled out a set of papers.

Holo-Nezu paused and leaned closer. "_Oh, and do bring Mr. Midoriya, or the android that bears his face; that determination shall be made at a later date._"

Izuku shivered. That was certainly ominous.

The holographic rat-man straightened up and returned to his cheerful smile. "_That is all! I look forward to our conversation!_"

The projector shut off.

Mei began flipping through the papers. "Alright let's see… cover letter, map to UA— as if we didn't have to get there to take the test in the first place— a written version of the message in case I'm deaf, aaaand details. Our interview is the day after tomorrow, 3:00 PM. You get that, HERoS?"

"**Calendar updated: UA Interview at 3:00 PM in two days."**

She flashed a thumbs up at the computer unit sitting in the corner. "Thanks."

With a clap of her hands, she turned to Izuku. "Hey, Zuzu, have you ever done an interview before?"

He blinked. "No?"

She frowned. "That's a shame. No time like the present, I guess?"

He tilted his head. "But, we passed. He said we passed. We just need to clear some stuff up, right?"

Momo tsked disappointedly. "Oh, Izuku, I thought you were smarter than that. This interview probably holds two purposes: to determine if you're actually a person or just a robot _convinced _it's a person, and to determine whether or not Mei is psychologically stable."

He blinked again. "But I am and she isn't."

Mei laughed. "Yeah, well, _they _don't know that, do they?"

He stroked his chin in exaggerated contemplation. "But, isn't going in with no idea what you're doing technically a more human reaction than proactively preparing for it?"

Momo pursed her lips. "I suppose, but that's not really the point is it? You're trying to make a good impression."

"But not too good," Mei chimed in. "Or else they'll think you're a robot."

Izuku raised a hand. "Doesn't Principal Nezu have, like, a very powerful intelligence Quirk? If his concern is whether I'm an actual person, can't we just trust that he'll arrive at the correct answer without us doing anything weird about it?"

Momo sighed. "And _not_ preparing for an interview with the literal top school in the country, Hero or not, very distinctly deviates from the norm."

He snapped his fingers and sighed dramatically. "Well, I guess you've got me there. C'mon, Mei, let's learn how to get interviewed."

Mei slammed her fist on the workbench. "I already _know_ how to handle an interview! I walk in, toss 'em a few of my babies, and I'm in!"

Momo sighed and put her hand to her forehead. "I guess I'm coaching _both_ of you, then."

* * *

Izuku stared up at the imposing UA Gate, feeling vaguely out of place wearing a button-up, slacks, and a blazer over his robot chassis. "I'm getting the feeling I should say something dramatic right about now, but I got nothing."

Mei, who somehow managed to sneak past Momo in her normal outfit, rolled her eyes and grabbed his arm, dragging him in through the Gate. "C'mon Zuzu, we don't have all day! We have a rodent to impress!"

"Hey," he admonished. "That's rude."

She tilted her head curiously. "But it's true. He is literally a rodent."

"He _might_ be a rodent. He also might be a dog, bear, or some combination thereof, so the safest bet is to just say mammal."

Mei frowned. "We have a mammal to impress? See, it doesn't really have the same flair, you know? I'm a mammal. Most people are mammals! It's not something out of the ordinary to be a mammal. Rodents, however, usually aren't individuals you set out to impress."

He sighed. "Let's just focus on the task at hand."

She shrugged and pushed open the glass doors of the main building. She wolf-whistled at the size of the room. "Wow, they really weren't kidding when they put 'Plus Ultra' as the school motto, huh."

Izuku shrugged and looked around. "I mean, this is a Hero school, I wouldn't be surprised if this was at least partially for the purposes of Quirk-related accessibility."

He paused. Was that—

It _was_.

The Clone Hero: Ectoplasm was sitting behind the receptionist's desk, playing a game on his phone.

Izuku cursed himself for not bringing his notebook. Sure, he'd digitized the whole series and could update them on the fly with nobody noticing, but he couldn't collect pro hero signatures when he didn't have a touchpad built into him! He'd have to make sure a notebook compartment was included in the next iteration of Corpus Primus.

Ectoplasm looked up from his phone. "Oh, are you here for the interview? Can I have your names?"

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. "Izuku Midoriya and Mei Hatsume? It's probably down as Mei, but it was requested that I show up as well."

He typed into his keyboard and peered at the screen. "Yeah, that was noted down here as well. You're the 3:00 slot, right? Just head straight down that way and get in the elevator at the end of the hallway, you literally cannot miss it."

He grinned and nodded. "Thank you, sir!"

Mei wandered up behind him. "Wow, I expected to have to drag you away from every pro hero we ran into along the way. I'm impressed."

"Eh, we're on a schedule. Not to mention," Izuku smirked as he headed down the hallway, "he'll still be there when we leave. I have no plans to let this opportunity go to waste."

She grinned and bumped shoulders with him. "Heh, just wait 'till we actually get in! I'm pretty sure the faculty is all pro heroes, along with at least a third of the staff."

He grinned back. "Yeah, don't they have Thirteen on staff? I have a lot of questions about her Quirk in particular."

He stopped, staring at the absurdly large and shiny doors of what Izuku assumed was the elevator in question. The doors slid open with a pleasant _ding_, revealing an equally large interior.

Mei grabbed his arm once more, pulling him into the elevator. "Yes, yes, big shiny door, we can gape at it later."

Izuku frowned as the doors slid shut behind them. "I wasn't _gaping_ at it. I just think the situation calls for more reverence than you're really capable of displaying."

She shrugged dismissively. "Reverence schmeverence, you need a hell of a lot more than a spatially inefficient interior to get _my_ respect. I mean seriously, there's Quirked accessibility and then there's UA."

"Plus Ultra," mumbled Izuku.

She nodded sagely. "Yeah, that'd do it."

With a second ding, the elevator doors slid open.

Mei winced. "Yikes."

The room before them held around a dozen Hero Course applicants scattered throughout, each in various states of nervousness and despair. The silhouette of a boy lay draped across two chairs as if awaiting his death sentence. A very rectangular looking boy with glasses sat ramrod straight in his chair, staring directly forwards but seeing nothing. A brown-haired girl was frantically re-reading her resume in an attempt to burn the information into her brain.

"How could they give us just one week to prepare? There wasn't even supposed to _be_ an interview!"

The rectangle boy nodded decisively and made very enthusiastic hand-chops. "Indeed! A hero must be prepared for unexpected situations, but interviews require careful preparation and forethought!" He paused for a moment. "However! Regardless of extenuating circumstances, none of us collected enough points to pass normally. This is a generous second chance that this institution has granted us! The faculty are taking the time out of their undoubtedly busy days to ensure that everyone has an if not equal, then fair opportunity for their skills and efforts to be recognized!"

The silhouette raised a hand lazily. "Yeah, well, it's not our fault we got put in the same arena as whatever maniac managed to kill 'em all in six minutes."

Izuku winced. On second thought, hacking into the robots and instantly killing all of them _would_ make it rather difficult for anyone else to pass.

Mei grinned and flounced into the room. "Hey! You're the kid with engines in his legs!"

The engine kid's eyes bulged as Mei entered the room. "You! You're the woman who propositioned me and asked me to help you make babies!"

Oh no. Thinking back, Mei _had_ been unsupervised and in the same room as normal people for about half a day before the practical portion of the exam started. Izuku should have known better.

He ran in after Mei. "Mei, what did I tell you about asking people to make babies-" he turned to the very understandably indignant boy. "She loves making inventions and she calls them her babies, she wasn't propositioning you, I'm so, _so_ sorry!"

The rectangle boy blinked and cleared his throat awkwardly. "Ah. So it was a misunderstanding! I deeply apologize for interpreting your words in such an unbecoming manner!" He dropped into a deep bow.

Izuku blinked before waving his hands frantically. "No, no, It's okay! I've been trying to get her to stop saying that stuff myself, but she just keeps doing it! I'm sorry!"

The boy bowed even _deeper_. "No, no, it was my mistake! I mistook her genuine curiosity and ingenuity as something unsavory and branded her a degenerate- the fault is mine!"

Mei smirked and sidled up to him. "Well, if you _really_ wanna make it up to me… you can always let me take a look at your legs! I've taken engines apart before, you won't feel a thing!"

He looked down at his legs sadly. "I apologize, but I cannot allow that to happen. Whatever debt I owe you for my uncouth behavior is still greatly overshadowed by the legacy I must uphold."

Legacy? Izuku's eyes widened and he snapped his fingers. "That's who you reminded me of! Are you related to the Pro Hero Ingenium?"

He nodded proudly. "He is my older brother. Ah! I forgot to introduce myself! I am Tenya Iida, pleased to make your acquaintance!"

Izuku nodded back. "Izuku Midoriya, and this is Mei Hatsume. Likewise."

Iida smiled pleasantly. "Excellent! While all of us here may be victims of circumstance, having been put in a position where we were unable to score any points, I am glad that this has at least provided an opportunity to clear up this misunderstanding!"

"Oh," began Mei, "We scored _plenty_ of points."

And every head in the room turned to stare at them. Izuku's heart sank.

Iida's eyebrows rose. "Ah! You will surely be great heroes if you were able to score enough points to pass in such little time! Truly commendable!"

Izuku forced a smile and put his arm around Mei. "Alright, Mei, let's just-"

Mei waved him off. "Nah, we're the ones that shut em all off."

Izuku put his hand against his face. Great. Glares burned into them from all corners of the room, but Iida seemed… impressed?

"Incredible! There were over 900 robots in that arena, if you managed to defeat all of them in less than six minutes then you must be the best of the best! I do find myself wondering what kind of Quirks were used to get that kind of result?"

Mei grinned dangerously. "I can magnify my vision and he's straight-up a robot. We just hacked into one and went from there; nothin' but raw brainpower over here!"

Iida opened his mouth to reply, but the door to the interview room swung open. A very miserable-looking boy with a brick for a head walked out of the door, followed by… was that The R-Rated Heroine: Midnight? She was holding a clipboard and looked out across the room with predatory eyes. "Alright, do we have a Mei Hatsume and Izuku Midoriya here?"

Mei waved to Iida and bounded up towards Midnight. "Yep!"

Izuku smiled apologetically at Iida and hurried after Mei, eager to escape the glares of the other applicants. "Yes, ma'am!"

Midnight's eyebrows rose. "Ooh, this one's _polite_. I could just _eat you up_."

Izuku blinked his eyescreens as he passed by her. "Please don't, this hardware is expensive."

She laughed and closed the door behind them.

Izuku looked around the room; they were high up, at least four stories, with a massive wall-length window on the far side of the room. There was a semicircular table pointed at them, populated by various Pro Heroes (including _All Might_, whom he could call All Might because he was in his All Might form), with a strange egg-shaped object at the head of the table.

The egg-shaped object rotated, revealing that it was actually a swivel chair containing one dog or mouse or bear, Principal Nezu himself.

"Ah, Miss Hatsume. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. We have _much_ to discuss."

* * *

**[EXTRA #1]: Grapevine**

**A/N: This, along with all upcoming Extras, is canon to Titanium Soul.**

Ibara Shiozaki and Minoru Mineta stood side by side, looking up at an empty office building.

"You asked me what made me believe in God."

Mineta nodded quietly.

Shiozaki swallowed, closed her eyes, and spoke. "Seven years ago, my father worked here. Seven years ago, it burned down. I watched it on TV."

He stayed silent.

"I wasn't particularly devout, but I was still raised Christian. So I prayed. I asked the Lord, please, send someone, _anyone_, to save my father."

She turned to him. "And then All Might arrived. With his wide smile and cheesy lines, with his indomitable strength, he saved everyone. And that's when I knew, in my heart of hearts, that that man was the Hand of God."

She turned back to the building. "And I knew that if I were to take up the mantle of hero, if I were to stand beside that man, that I too could do the Lord's work. Does that answer your question, Minoru Mineta?"

Mineta nodded slowly, deep in thought. "I… I think it does."

She sighed. "If it helps, I don't think it matters _what_ religion you join. It matters not in what form you find God, so long as you do find Him. Don't feel pressured to be Christian just because I am."

"Oh, okay. Thank you, miss…?"

She smiled. "Ibara Shiozaki. I hope to see you at UA, Mineta." She extended her hand to him.

Mineta smiled softly and took it. "Likewise."

* * *

**A/N: [PIXELKIND] And there's the chapter! Originally, the interview was gonna be included but I ended up running the word count way up. Iida is actually surprisingly fun to write!**

**My current goal is to post a chapter of _something_ monthly, so split between this, NGA, and a future project this fic will probably update between every other month and every third month.**


	8. Intellection

**Titanium Soul**

**[CHAPTER 8]: Intellection**

**[ALTERNATIVELY]: In Which Izuku And Mei Terrorize The UA Faculty In Their Own Unique Ways**

_Intellection (n): the action or process of understanding; the exercise of the intellect_

* * *

Izuku sat nervously in the chair next to Mei as the typical pleasantries were exchanged, too distracted to freak out about being surrounded by Pro Heroes. At least, he was nervous internally; HERoS was making sure that didn't translate into his body language. Yeah, being a robot was basically cheating at this stuff, but he was gonna take whatever he could get.

Nezu cleared his throat. "Now, Miss Hatsume, as you may have gathered from my previous correspondence you _did_ pass the entrance exam, so you're not here for the same reasons as our other Hero Course applicants. I've invited you here today to address some irregularities in your application. Namely the fact that your friend there is registered as support equipment."

Mei blinked. "Yeah, Miracle Girl said that since he maybe might not quite legally be a person we should probably do it like that. Was there a problem with that?"

The very tired looking hobo at the end of the table snorted. "You're applying to a school with a rat for a principal-"

"Or dog, or bear," chimed in Nezu.

"Yes, that," amended the homeless man who was inexplicably sitting at the table right next to Midnight, the R-Rated Heroine. "It would be irrational for us to care."

That… was actually a good point.

"So," continued Nezu, "I have an offer for you. You can continue your enrollment as-is, with yourself in the Hero Course and Midoriya as support equipment. _Or_, we can put you in the Support Course, enter Midoriya in the Hero Course, split your practical score between the two of you, and mark you down as an auxiliary to his class. Essentially, this would mean that whenever they hold a practical lesson you would be with his class instead of your own."

Izuku and Mei looked at each other for a moment, before turning back to Nezu and nodding simultaneously.

He straightened some papers on the table, stacking them neatly off to the side. "Excellent. Now, ordinarily we can't just shuffle students around between departments, but not only did we catch this before the school year started, it _just _so happens that everyone and everything that I need to file a new student application is right in front of me! I had Power Loader prepare a Support Course qualification test for you, Miss Hatsume, so you can get that done right away." The diminutive mammal —Mei was right, that didn't really have the same flair as referring to him as a rodent— shot a glance down the table.

Power Loader nodded and stood up. "Right. We're going to be using the support labs for this, so I'm going to run you through a workshop safety course first— I'm legally required to do that, so don't take it personally…" Mei, whose eyes had snapped to him and hadn't blinked since the words 'support labs' had come out of the Hero's mouth, jumped from her seat and followed him out a side door.

Nezu smiled and turned his gaze back to Izuku. "Which leaves us with you, Mr. Midoriya. I don't suppose you'd just tell me if you were a haphazardly constructed simulacrum making a mockery of Izuku Midoriya's identity and patiently biding your time until you snap and go on a bloody murder spree, would you?"

Izuku frowned. "Would it be too much to expect you to believe me when I say I'm not?"

Nezu nodded slowly. "Well, we do have All Might on staff this year, so rest assured that if you were to go so far as to deliberately cause permanent harm to another student you'd likely have a maximum of two minutes until he would return you to the pile of scrap from whence you came. Would you like some tea?"

Izuku blinked his eyescreens. As if on cue, a wheeled cart piloted by Lunch Rush rolled smoothly into the room, making it way down the table and distributing beverages. The hobo —wait that was _Eraserhead_, the Erasure Hero! No wonder he hadn't recognized him, the guy was practically an urban legend in the hero-chasing community! Sure, there were rumors that the Hero worked at UA but he was sitting _right in front of Izuku—_ got an entire thermos full of coffee, which was immediately chugged. A dainty silver tea set was removed from the cart, and Lunch Rush poured two cups skillfully. One was deposited in front of the principal, and the other was slid across the table, coming to a perfect stop in front of Izuku.

A splash of color on the napkin the teacup rested on caught his attention. He hesitantly lifted the cup, revealing a '_Good luck, Midoriya!_' and a thumbs up scrawled in purple ink.

Izuku's eyescreens flashed question marks as he looked back up at Lunch Rush. The Cooking Hero was _renowned_ for his anonymity and professionalism, and not only did the man _know his name_ but he also _wrote him an encouraging note_? His confusion was only exacerbated as the Hero flashed a thumbs up at him and pushed the cart back out of the room.

Izuku distractedly sipped from the teacup in his hand. It clinked loudly against his face and the contents of the cup splashed down his front.

Right. He was a robot. He couldn't drink tea. "Whoops."

Midnight snorted over her latte.

**[Would you like me to warn you next time you are about to take an action that could potentially harm the Corpus Primus II Prototype?]**

Yes, HERoS, that would be wonderful.

**[Settings Updated.]**

Izuku firmly placed the teacup back on the table and inwardly thanked the fact that while he could not drink tea he also could not blush. He quickly picked up the napkin and cleaned himself off.

Nezu calmly sipped at his own tea, eyeing Izuku over the rim of his cup. "I must admit, I am rather curious about something. Why are you applying here?"

Izuku stared at him. "Why am I applying to the top Hero school in the country?"

Nezu nodded. "Yes. With your current… situation, you could likely download the standardized curriculum, test out of high school, and apply for a Hero license directly. From a practical standpoint, going through _any_ Hero course is completely unnecessary and a total waste of everyone's time. So I ask you again; why are you applying to my school?"

Izuku frowned. He hadn't even _thought_ of that. The principal had a point; he absolutely _could_ just skip high school and go straight for the Hero license. But then again, the license wasn't the point, was it?

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Well, _sure_ I could probably qualify for a Hero license, but that doesn't mean I'd be able to get anywhere with it without the connections graduating from UA would get me. And I definitely _would _get stronger from going through a Hero Course; I'm running some natural learning algorithms to learn how to fight properly, and those work better the more data you put in, so practical lessons with low stakes are the best thing for me. But that's why it makes _sense_ to be here, not why I _want _to be here."

Izuku smiled weakly and leaned back in his chair. "This might sound petty, but I don't want to just sit on my friends' hard work and go straight on to what I want to do. This body, this technology? I'm running on Mei and Momo's blood, sweat, and tears. Sure, I helped, but without even one of them I quite literally could not be sitting here in front of you today. I… I want to become a hero who's _worthy_ of this body, not one who's only there because of it."

All Might grinned widely and let out a bellowing laugh. "**Well said, young Midoriya!**"

Nezu chuckled and dipped his head. "Indeed. That would be all of my questions, is there anything you would like to ask us?"

Izuku shifted in his seat. "Well, nothing particularly relevant to this discussion, no."

Nezu raised an eyebrow. "We're here until Miss Hatsume finishes her testing with Power Loader, so let's have them anyway."

A grin spread across Izuku's metal face as he leaned forwards, turning to face the hobo Hero. "You're Eraserhead, right? Your Quirk is Erasure? How does it work? Do you shoot a Quirk-impeding beam out of your eyes or what? Can you deliberately _not_ Erase the Quirk of someone in your line of sight while Erasing the Quirks of others? What happens if you try to Erase your own Quirk through a mirror?"

**[I took the liberty of slowing that down enough for it to be intelligible to the average human being. You're welcome.]**

HERoS was absolutely the best.

Eraserhead frowned. "Yes, yes, and the rest is classified."

Izuku nodded, internally pulling up his document on the Hero and underlining the '_keeps the specifics of his Quirk ambiguous_' line. He then turned his gaze to Midnight. "Your Quirk is on record as 'Somnambulist,' which seems to be based off 'somnambulism,' the scientific term for sleepwalking. You release a gas from your skin that puts people to sleep, this much is confirmed, but the Quirk's name seems to imply you might be able to control people while they're asleep. Is that true? And does the sleeping gas work chemically, or does it function as the medium for your Quirk Factor?"

Midnight blinked. "Come again?"

Izuku tilted his head. "In other words, is your Quirk 'producing sleeping gas' or 'inflicting unconsciousness through the medium of a gas'? I've been leaning towards the second one but you would know better than me."

She hummed thoughtfully. "Is there a difference?"

He tapped his chin slowly. "Well, the second one would imply that your gas is a biological agent with your Quirk Factor distributed throughout it, while the first would mean your Quirk Factor stays within your skin and just produces the gas."

She leaned forwards. "Does that change anything from a practical standpoint?"

Izuku raised an eyebrow. "If Eraserhead Erased your Quirk _after _you released your sleeping gas, would it stop knocking people out?"

She frowned. "I don't... _think _so? It hasn't come up."

He nodded slowly, updating his entry on her before turning to his next victim. "Vlad King, have you noticed any irregularities in your blood composition-"

* * *

Mei flung open the door and stared. The room, which had been full of conscious and highly rated Pro Heroes and Izuku when she had left, was now littered with limp, defeated bodies. All Might and Nezu were the only ones left sitting tall, and both of them watched on with visible amusement. Izuku sat on his chair in the middle, hands positioned as if he were holding an imaginary notebook, firmly interrogating Present Mic.

"Why would I know the tensile strength of my vocal cords?" cried the Voice Hero. "I've never taken them out and I never plan to!"

Her grin spread even wider as she reached out and firmly knocked against the doorframe. "Hello? Your future number one support course student has returned!"

Nezu turned from where he was gleefully watching Izuku verbally try to dissect his employees and smiled. "Welcome back, Miss Hatsume. Power Loader sent you back ahead of him, then?"

She nodded. "He stayed behind to make sure my super-cute self-replicating utility drone doesn't burn down his workshop while it runs."

Izuku looked up and frowned. "Is that something with a risk of happening?"

She shrugged. "Well if it does, it was supposed to. That's my story and I'm sticking with it."

He sighed. "I'll head down later and add a fire extinguisher to it."

She pouted. "You're no fun, Zuzu. It's been too long since I've cut loose and made babies just for the fun of it!"

Nezu cleared his throat. "Well then, Miss Hatsume, that is all we need from you. Do _you_ have any questions for us?"

Present Mic groaned from where he lay against the table. "Please, no more!"

Mei hummed thoughtfully, tapping her chin. She snapped her fingers and nodded. "Yeah, actually. What does your insurance policy look like?"

"Confidential," Nezu replied cheerfully. He looked down at his watch and sighed. "Unfortunately, that's all we have time for today. Expect your results to come in the mail within five to eight business days. Oh, and before I forget; we're opening on-campus dorms this year! They aren't mandatory but it is highly advised that you consider moving in, due to a number of security concerns that have recently been brought to our attention."

Mei and Izuku looked at each other, before turning back to Nezu.

She raised a hand. "What is the dorm's stance on us installing a crucible in our rooms?"

Nezu raised an eyebrow. "Don't."

She nodded. "Understandable." She turned around and made for the door.

Izuku sighed and stood up. He bowed to the table of Heroes, most of whom were still trying to recover from his admittedly overenthusiastic questioning. "Thank you for this opportunity!"

All Might grinned and flashed him a thumbs up. "**It was our pleasure, young Midoriya!**"

* * *

"Excuse me, Pro Hero Ectoplasm?"

Ectoplasm looked up from his phone. That metal kid from earlier was standing in front of his desk like some kind of cybernetic puppy. "Yes?"

"Do you have the time to answer a couple of questions about your Quirk?"

Eh, what harm could it do? "Sure. What have you got for me?"

Midoriya's eyes lit up. "Your clones are made from some sort of bio-ooze, right? Have you ever run that stuff through a mass spectrometer?"

Ectoplasm blinked. "No?"

Midoriya pouted. "Do you at least know its density? Have you looked at it through a microscope? Does it _taste _like anything?"

Ectoplasm frowned. "Are you asking me to eat one of my clones?"

Midoriya thought for a moment. "I mean, if you want to? It would definitely provide valuable data."

The pink-haired girl standing behind him cheered. "Cannibalism, for _science_!"

Oh no.

* * *

Izuku's many sensors tracked the tip of the staff whirling towards his head easily, batting it off course with one arm and jabbing at his assailant's face with the other.

Momo spun her staff, catching Izuku's arm along the length and levering it away, frowning when it took more effort than she expected. She quickly disengaged, backing off and watching him carefully. Her staff clattered to the ground, quickly replaced by what could technically also be called a staff but in practice could only be called a double-ended sledgehammer.

She gave it a few experimental twirls before running back in towards him. He sidestepped her swing and stared when it shattered the concrete floor of their arena.

"**My calculations suggest that taking a direct hit from such an attack could inflict permanent damage on this prototype."**

Momo grinned viciously, spinning her weapon around herself to build up momentum. "Then he'll just have to _dodge!_" Her words were punctuated with a horizontal sweep, forcing Izuku to duck under the attack.

"**It appears my lack of tonal indicators led to a minor misunderstanding. I will now rectify this. Amusement; dance, monkey."**

Yeah, HERoS had definitely spent too much time with Mei.

Izuku frowned as he barely managed to evade Momo's next attack. "I would like to remind everyone present that we never actually set up an automatic backup system, so actually killing me would defeat the point of this sparring match. Actually, HERoS, can you do that now?"

**[Affirmative; You will have to set up some hardware for this. I'll send the orders to Miss Hatsume once I have everything set up on my end.]**

He brought up an arm to guard his face against a (relatively) light blow, and stared in astonishment when it _left a dent in his reinforced plating_. "Ok, what the _heck_ is that thing made of?"

He leaned back from another swing, only to have his legs swept out from under him by the weapon's other end. His arms shot back, trying to catch himself as the hammer-staff whirled right for his head.

The weapon slowed right before impact, lightly tapping his forehead with a quiet 'dink'.

Momo smirked. "That's a win for me."

Izuku let out a sigh and stood up. "Good fight. My question still stands, though."

She hefted her weapon. "The shaft is carbon-fiber and resin, the heads are osmium with tungsten plating. I figured I'd need something a little more hefty to do anything to you."

He nodded. "Yeah, that'd do it. What about your lipid stores, though? Creating that much mass at once can't be that great for you, can it?"

She shrugged. "My fat reserves tend to get denser before they get bigger, so I could probably go another 30 kilograms before I start hurting myself. It's why I prefer lighter weapons, most of the time."

Izuku blinked. "30 kilograms, on your weight?"

She blushed. "No, no, 30 coming out. My efficiency is somewhere around 300%?"

He frowned. "That's _insane_. Can you Create and then eat food? I know you can't make living things but organic compounds should be doable…"

Momo shook her head. "Not only does it tend to taste bad, my digestive system does _not_ react well to food made from my Quirk— no idea why. And before you say anything about seeing if it's just something specific to myself, I'm not going to risk putting another person through… _that_… if I can help it."

He nodded understandingly. "Valid. I'm gonna go chew out Mei for infecting HERoS with her crazy, wanna come with? She might have some ideas for increasing the mass efficiency on your constructs."

She tilted her head. "I may as well."

Izuku jumped over the sparring arena ring and led them to a small door set into the wall. "Y'know, when you mentioned this place being part bunker I thought you meant it was just heavily insulated against everything, not that an entire military could operate out of this place for about three years with no problem."

Momo shrugged helplessly. "Yeah, my parents tend to go a little overboard."

They stopped outside the door. Izuku took a deep breath, remembered he was a robot, and sighed. "Alright, let's do this."

She raised an eyebrow.

Izuku squared his shoulders at the door. "See, when you're telling off Mei, you have to get her attention in a very specific way. Observe."

He kicked the door open and stormed into the hangar bay their friend had converted into a temporary workshop. "MEI, WHAT THE _FU-_ Oh, hey, All Might!"

All Might looked up from whatever it was that Mei was doing and grinned sheepishly. "**I AM HERE, to congratulate you on your results?**"

Izuku's eyescreens snapped to Mei, who rolled her eyes and tossed him a memory chip. "They sent _another_ set of hologram projectors, what was I _supposed _to do? Actually watch them, like some kind of rule-follower? I'm upgrading our old projector with all the newfangled doohickeys UA jammed in these babies."

Izuku nodded along. "So, what were the results?"

Mei smirked. "Do you even have to ask? We aced it, obviously. Split first place in the practical, and I'm not even in the Hero Course."

He blinked. "Wow, they really let us keep that score?"

She grinned. "Yep."

He leaned over her and grabbed the discarded envelopes, pulling out the actual letter and paperwork within. "Alright, welcome to UA, Hero Course, there's the scoreboard- oh god, Kacchan's gonna flip when he sees _that_\- where's the class designation? There you are. Class 1A!"

Mei glanced down at her letter. "Support Course, Class 1H, Auxiliary to 1A."

He looked up at Momo. "What class are you in? I'm pretty sure you got your letter like, a week ago, and held off on telling us because you didn't want us to feel bad or something."

She blushed but nodded. "I'm in 1B."

He pouted. "And I was looking forward to having friends in my class."

Mei cackled. "A member of Hatsume Industries in each Hero Class! That's _twice_ the networking!"

Izuku stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Dang, you're right. Momo, make sure you convince your class that Mei is the best support technician this side of I-Island."

Momo nodded with mock seriousness. "It is my solemn duty."

All Might let out a booming laugh, reminding everyone that he was present. Izuku sighed and waved towards him. "You can probably drop it, by the way. Everyone here already knows, and you're wasting precious time like that."

He frowned, but deflated anyway. "Alright. So… Congratulations on your acceptance to the UA Hero Course, Young Midoriya! Nezu insisted on doing your video messages himself, so I felt that coming by was only appropriate."

Izuku nodded and flashed him a thumbs up. "Thanks! How are you holding up, by the way? Are you eating enough? HERoS and I did some research and apparently when you don't have a stomach you're supposed to eat smaller meals, but more often? You're doing that, right?"

Mr. Yagi started laughing. "I see the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree with you, Young Midoriya! Your mother asks me the same thing every time I speak with her!"

Izuku crossed his arms. "I should hope so. And that wasn't an answer, Mr. Yagi."

He straightened up indignantly. "I'll have you know that I can take care of myself, young man! That being said, I sometimes lose track of time and miss the occasional sub-meal."

Izuku sighed. "Mei, get him something to do something about that."

Mei's eyes gleamed. "Ooooh, if this is going on All Might, it'll have to be the _cutest baby ever_! Maybe… a watch, that tases him when he's supposed to eat? Maybe a bomb? He's a hero, we gotta motivate him _somehow-_"

Izuku thwacked her in the back of her head. "No holding people hostage with a bomb to make sure All Might takes care of himself."

She pouted. "But it's almost guaranteed to work!"

All Might laughed nervously, backing away towards the open hangar door. "That's wonderful, Young Hatsume, but I really must be going now. Have a wonderful day, see you at UA! **All Might, AWAY!**" With that, he puffed back into his heroic form and leapt away.

Izuku sighed again. "See, Mei, look what you did. You scared him off!"

* * *

**[CALENDAR ENTRY: UA MOVE-IN DAY, occurs in roughly two hours. Miss Yaoyorozu should be arriving soon.]**

Izuku looked up from his task of scanning his Hero Analysis notebooks and nodded. "Thanks, HERoS."

**[I would also like to remind you that your mother asked you to go by before you headed out.]**

He waved HERoS off. "Yeah, I'm not gonna skip out on her. I do wanna get everything loaded up first, though."

He opened the door to the workshop and facepalmed. Mei lay across her workbench, unconscious, tools still in her hand. For a brief moment Izuku considered grabbing some pipes and banging them together to wake her up, but then he realized that a sleeping Mei was safer than a sleep-deprived Mei, and shifted her into a position that should be less damaging to her spine.

A gentle knock against the garage door let him know Momo had arrived with the truck, so he lifted it open, and stared. "I thought you said you were bringing a truck," he said.

She blinked in confusion. "I did."

A massive freightliner truck sat parked outside their garage.

"I thought you meant, like, a pickup truck or maybe one of the smaller rentals."

Momo shrugged. "We already had this one laying around, and I do have a license for it already. You guys have everything packed up?"

He nodded. "Just about. Mei has the blueprints for the automatic maintenance pod, so we're gonna be setting that up for most of the weekend. Besides that, I just have a few boxes. I think Mei packed up most of the workshop herself, so I dunno how that's gonna work."

Momo shrugged. "Rico will make it work."

Izuku blinked. "Rico?"

She turned back towards her truck and snapped her fingers loudly. A large, hulking man jumped out of the cab and ran up to stand beside her.

She gestured towards him. "This is Rico, his Quirk is 'All Hands On Deck'. He can make copies of himself as long as he's touching an object and all versions of him maintain contact with it. He has a labor-based Quirk Permit."

Izuku's eyescreens shone. "That's _so cool_! Are there limitations to how many clones he can make, or what the object is? Are the clones on a hive-mind or do they operate independently? What happens if-"

**"Chiding; I hate to interrupt, but since the loading situation seems to be handled, I would advise you to go see what your mother wants. We are on a schedule, after all."**

"Right. Try not to wake up Mei, make sure you don't drop anything important, and for the love of god don't open the fuel cell containment unit. That should be everything, please don't leave without me, I'm gonna go see what my mom wants!" He shot one last, curious glance at Rico, who was now two people and carrying a box, before heading down the driveway and off to the Midoriya house.

* * *

Izuku silently entered the cab of the truck, carrying his payload.

Rico sat at the driver's seat, with Mei and Momo in the back. The former was still asleep, leaned against the wall of the cab, and the latter raised her eyebrows as Izuku entered.

"What's that?"

Izuku stared down at the foil-covered industrial-sized bakeware dish in his hands. "My mom's casserole."

Momo stared. "It's seven AM."

"I know," he replied, setting the ridiculously huge dish on the seat next to him.

"...was there a reason she gave this to you?"

Izuku spread his hands helplessly. "She said to give it to my friends when we move in."

"I see," Momo lied.

He turned his eyescreens to the sky. "I _suspect _my mom still hasn't forgiven me for letting her think I was fully dead for a few months, and this may be her attempt at vengeance."

She nodded sagely. "That might be it."

He sat back in his seat. "You got everything loaded up fine?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Everything's ready to go. You gonna buckle that down, or…?"

He reached over and wrapped the seatbelt around the casserole, clicking it into the slot.

Momo turned towards the front. "Alright, Rico, we're ready!"

He nodded silently and started up the truck.

Izuku and Momo sat in silence as the vehicle pulled out of the driveway.

"Smells pretty good," commented Momo.

"I can't smell," Izuku replied miserably.

Momo shifted awkwardly. "Ah."

Mei snored loudly.

Izuku snapped his fingers. "Right! Rico's Quirk. Tell me about it."

Momo gave him an amused smile. "Sure. What were your questions, again?"

His eyescreens gleamed ominously. "Tell me everything."

* * *

**[EXTRA #2]: Lament of a Brainwasher**

**A/N: This, along with all other Extras, is canon to Titanium Soul**

Hitoshi Shinsou left the interview room numb, stepping past other waiting Hero Course applicants without seeing them.

He'd botched it. He didn't think he'd made a _bad_ impression, more that he'd failed to make _any_ sort of impression —besides being overwhelmingly nervous, but let's face it, that'd be the same for _everyone_ walking into that room. The way Nezu looked at him, like he was trying to look into his soul, and _succeeding_… he shuddered to himself as he entered the elevator.

He was snapped out of his reverie by one of the interviewers, the hobo looking one, descending into his line of sight, hanging upside-down from some sort of grey scarf thing from the elevator's access hatch.

"Why didn't you use your Quirk?"

Hitoshi blinked. "Come again?"

Eraserhead sighed and elaborated. "Why didn't you use your Quirk in that interview? Brainwashing, right? You ask a question, someone answers, you're in control. There were plenty of opportunities for you to get everyone in the room. Why didn't you just brainwash us into accepting you?"

Hitoshi had considered it. Seriously. The only reason he hadn't was because the principal was literally a rat or dog or bear and Brainwashing only worked on humans.

But he also knew that sounded really really bad, so he decided to not say it.

"Because," he improvised, "using your Quirk to get whatever you want isn't what Heroes do. A Hero uses their Quirk for protecting others, not personal gain."

Eraserhead hummed thoughtfully. "We'll see how that resolve holds up."

The elevator chimed pleasantly, and the doors slid open. Hitoshi blinked, and the hero was gone.

He stared blankly at the closed elevator hatch. What the hell?

* * *

**A/N: So there's the interview! Nezu and Eraserhead are really fun to write!**

**I considered going back and rewriting certain parts of this fic (cough cough the bakugo scene) but honestly? I don't wanna set a precedent for that. So I'm just going to take the fact that I want to change it as a sign that I've been improving as a writer and work with what I've given myself. I've got a _lot_ I want to cover with this story, so I'm gonna keep moving forwards, rather than look back. **

**Think I messed up somewhere, or that I did something really well? Did I make you laugh? Cry? Throw your laptop across the room? Tell me in the reviews! Feedback is a critical component for improving your skills, and that's what reviews are for me!**

**Next chapter should be out by the end of, what, December? Maybe sooner if I end up hammering out chapters for my other fics quickly, but I make no promises.**

**Thanks for reading!**


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